Microsoft Upgrades IPTV Solution, Now Titled ‘Mediaroom’

What was originally generally known as Microsoft IPTV has had its label altered. It is now to be referred to as Mediaroom. Yep. Big news, huh?

In all seriousness, the announcement of Mediaroom is quite weighty, if only because Microsoft’s ties to content providers and distributors in the realm of IPTV are relationships with considerable value. Plus, with the name change come a few software updates, which include “in-home personal music and video sharing, dynamic picture-in-picture capabilities and digital terrestrial television support.”

Microsoft Mediaroom is no Apple TV. Consumers can’t buy Mediaroom as they would Media Center (or Vista Home Premium), right off the shelf. Instead, Microsoft has exchanged pleasantries and signed deals with television service providers among the likes of AT&T in order to put its software in front of the eyes of IPTV lovers in the US and elsewhere without having to develop a set top box of its own.

So, for instance, if you happen to get AT&T’s U-Verse IPTV service pumped in the form of ones and zeros straight to your television screen, the software making sure you see what you want to see comes by way of Redmond. The same goes for consumers of sixteen other service providers around the world:

Canada - Bell
China - CNC
Denmark - TDC
France - ClubInternet
Germany - Telkom
Germany - T-Home
Hungary - Magyar Telekom
India - Reliance
Italy - Telecom Italia
Italy - Wind
Singapore - SingTel
Slovakia - Slovak Telekom
Spain - YacomTV
Switzerland - Swisscom
Taiwan - Chunghwa Telecom
UK - BT

In all, Microsoft prefers making arrangements with hardware manufacturers and service providers. The company knows all too well how its pre-Mediaroom Microsoft TV venture was received by consumers. Apart from the Xbox line and PC peripherals, which clearly are successful projects, the fact that Microsoft focuses almost solely on software is arguably what has brought it to the heights it’s experienced over the years.

The most buzzworthy aspect of the Mediaroom announcement is not the introduction of in-home media sharing nor any of the other ready-to-eat features present in the upgrade. Instead, it is debut of the Microsoft Mediaroom Application Development kit, which provides both service providers and third-party developers the puzzle pieces necessary to create new features to run on the Mediaroom platform.

Hear that Apple? Hear that TiVo? All other various producers of IPTV solutions need to listen up as well. Microsoft’s now in the game for real. If you want to stick around, we suggest you open, at least a little. Whether you go open source with your respective boxes is up to you. But give the world some SDKs. It won’t kill you. In fact, it’ll probably help. A lot.