It’s been almost ten years since Microsoft threw its hat into the interactive TV software ring and still the Redmond giant can’t get it right. I’ve been following Microsoft’s efforts to sell an interactive TV platform since the get-go, when it aimed to be the middleware provider for advanced set-top boxes that the cable industry had been contemplating in the mid-1990s.
Back then, all I heard from cable engineers was how bad the software was — the original prototype that Microsoft circulated to cable CTOs didn’t have a TV tuner and even included a library of printer fonts. Now, it seems, Microsoft can’t make its software work on Verizon’s set-tops either.
The WSJ’s Dionne Searcey and Robert Guth have this piece today about how Verizon has had to step in and actually write software code to get the Microsoft TV Foundation (the company’s most basic software) to work on its FiOS TV boxes. It seems that key components of the technology were too bulky for the Motorola boxes Verizon is using. In order to make its deadlines, Verizon had to send its own engineers to fix the code.
Verizon isn’t the only U.S. telco to use Microsoft software — AT&T is deploying a different version of its middleware app in its Project Lightspeed roll-outs. But, as I suggested over a year ago, AT&T’s TV deployments, which have been delayed a couple of times, are also bedeviled by Microsoft’s technology.
Cynthia Brumfield at 11:17 AM|Comments(0)
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