• TiVo versus Media Center Edition PC's - finally!
• Media Center Eye for the TiVo Guy

Some reaction from the blogosphere:

• Michael Gartenberg at Jupiter

  If I want to store and view my pictures, music and other video content, burn to DVD, copy to a portable media player and stream that content to other devices in my home, I can do that with the PC and not with the TiVo. The MCE EPG is also more flexible.

• PVR Blog

  If owners want to burn stuff to DVD or watch shows on their laptop while traveling, it's probably worth using MCE or MythTV, even though it costs more and they might crash from time to time.

• Scoble

  What's excited me is the next version of Windows Media Center. That hasn't been released yet. So, let's revisit this in the fall when the Media Center gets released.

• Gammatron

  The big vendors are still locked into the "PC First" mentality, evidenced by the fact that no one has shipped a Media Center PC with a real home theater component form factor.

• Omar

  My [Media Center] machine runs 24/7 and has rarely missed recordings and only crashed once in 2 years.

• Middle Grey

  Media Center, bluntly, was one of the stupidest ideas Microsoft has had in years. People don't want their computer in their entertainment center. Or in their living room, for that matter.

My thoughts... shortly.
4:33:15 PM   []

I am all for cost efficacy, or whatever fancy words they want to call cost cutting, but what makes Microsoft a great company is not $60 billion (or $70 or $80) in the bank (even though we have a top notch investment team). What makes Microsoft a great company is our 50,000 employees who make and sell lots of software. Don't short change them; if want to be the best company, we should compensate the best. There should be no other considerations.

These cuts may have been small but it has seriously impacted morale. You would not believe how many people talk about the day that they will be required to bring their own toilet paper or talk about hanging their dirty towels on their office doors.

Update: See also the Seattle PI article, Shrimp and weenies:

[Years ago] the memo made it clear that Microsoft party planners should serve cocktail wieners rather than more expensive shrimp as part of a broader return to frugality. Because of the memo, "shrimp and weenies" became a Microsoft catch phrase referring to efforts to save money. (

Rumor has it that now in some divisions to [a certain VP's name] something refers to the cutting or scoping down of a feature.
2:29:19 PM   []