Microsoft sketches eHome strategy

By
EE Times
(04/17/02, 10:49:52 AM EDT)

SEATTLE Microsoft Corp. revealed more details of its eHome initiative at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference Tuesday (April 16), including an ambitious new software project to extend the PC into the consumer electronics realm.

By year's end, the software giant will roll out software dubbed Mira and Freestyle that will drive low-cost smart displays and high-end PC/TV systems respectively. Meanwhile, Microsoft developers are working on middleware that will ride on top of its next major version of Windows, due out in late 2004, that aims to turn home PCs into media libraries able to control a broad range of devices and services in the home.

Analysts and OEMs gave mixed reviews to Microsoft's latest consumer strategy. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates had formally announced the Mira and Freestyle initiatives at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Here at WinHEC, company executives said for the first time that those technologies will ship this year and provided a road map to show how they fit into the company's broader consumer strategy.

Mira systems are basically LCD tablets that use terminal services software to link over an 802.11 wireless network to a desktop PC, which handles the display's processing chores. The Mira devices are geared to act as low-cost portable extensions of a home PC. Philips, Viewsonic and others have said they will make Mira tablets.

However, a senior engineer with one OEM said his company would not make Mira-enabled devices because in their first iteration a user cannot access a home PC and the Mira display at the same time. In addition, well-designed Mira models are expected to cost more than $500, several hundred dollars above what marketers suggest would be a compelling price point, the engineer said.

Microsoft's Freestyle software consists of a set of technologies for next-generation PC/TV systems. It includes a new TV-like user interface for playing broadcast TV or a library of music and movies. Freestyle systems will manage digital photos and music, provide an electronic program guide and act as a personal video recorder. Hewlett-Packard, NEC and Samsung have said they will make Freestyle systems.

An engineer from one of company supporting Freestyle said such systems will initially be limited to relatively small screens, in part because PCs are not prepared to drive high-resolution, large-screen displays. In addition, the Freestyle architecture is relatively inefficient, requiring the copying of a lot of content into and out of system memory, he said.

As part of its eHome strategy, Microsoft plans to effectively merge the Mira and Freestyle technologies into something it calls the Windows Managed Media and Devices Framework, a layer of middleware that will ride on top of Longhorn, the next major version of Windows. "We think of this as distributed computing for the home," said Michael Toutonghi, a distinguished engineer and vice president for the company's new media platforms.

The framework will let a PC act as a central hub for any media content it finds on any device connected to a home network, using a next-generation of the Mira and Freestyle technologies. Thus the framework could find music on a home PC in one room and play it on a connected stereo in another. "I don't have to know where on the network this content resides," Toutonghi said.

Besides bridging many different consumer devices in a home, the software also aims to bridge a variety of home networks, including both IP-based and control networks. Though Microsoft will support 802.11 and Internet Protocol over 1394 home networks natively, it expects a host of fragmented nets will gain a foothold in future homes.

Microsoft is courting consumer companies to adopt its Universal Plug and Play technology to have their products automatically find and access diverse devices across a home network. Its upcoming Framework is based on UPnP.

"A lot of this is wishful thinking," said Richard Doherty, principal of Envisioneering (Seaford, N.Y.), a technology analysis company. Most consumer systems have no plans to allow themselves to be queried as Windows peripherals, he said.

Microsoft admits the ambition of its goal. "This is a long-term investment Microsoft is making that will require several years," said Sriram Rajagopalan, group manager for media services platforms at Microsoft.

One engineer who said his company will not make initial Mira and Freestyle products said he does agree with the long-term vision. Ultimately the technologies will help establish the PC as the host for managing audio, video and images in a home and sending that content perhaps through Mira-based set-top devices to stereos and TVs for playback, he said.

"We share the same vision as Microsoft, but we will get their via another route," he said.