Microsoft bringing Internet TV feature to Windows Media Center
During our chat with Microsoft today, we got wind of a brand new feature coming to Windows Media Center, and it's slated to hit just as D-Link and Linksys get official with their Media Center Extenders.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands mid-arc in Microsoft's long-running push to put itself between broadband pipes and the living room: last100 traced that Internet TV strategy in July, and in June the company showed its carrier-facing half at NXTcomm with the Mediaroom IPTV platform. The new feature extends the same ambition to the consumer side of Windows.
The timing is deliberate: the Internet TV feature arrives just as D-Link and Linksys make their Media Center Extenders official, so Microsoft can pitch a single story — PC-sourced and Internet-delivered television on any TV in the house — rather than a PC-only add-on.
First-order effects
- Windows Media Center users gain a built-in Internet TV feature, giving the aging media application fresh free content without new hardware on the PC itself.
- D-Link and Linksys launch their officially branded Media Center Extenders directly into a moment where the platform's headline capability is expanding, not just replicating the PC experience.
Second-order effects
- Extender hardware stops being a niche accessory for DVR fans and starts competing as a low-cost set-top box alternative, pressuring carriers and CE makers who sell closed IPTV boxes.
- Microsoft now runs two tracks into the same room — Mediaroom sold through telcos and Internet TV through Media Center — forcing it to position one against the other or risk confusing partners on both sides.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, television distribution splits between carrier-managed IPTV and open-internet delivery to commodity hardware, with Microsoft betting on both rails and the Extender line as its hedge.
- CE vendors learn that value migrates from the tuner inside the box to the software service behind it, foreshadowing the connected-TV category where content deals, not silicon, decide winners.
The trend: Microsoft is converging its PC media platform and its carrier IPTV business toward a single internet-delivered television strategy, using third-party extenders as the distribution wedge.