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Microsoft has made great technical strides with Windows Vista Media Center but has done little to pump up its digital integration channel, partners said.
At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, several long-standing home integration partners complained that Microsoft has been conspicuously absent from their business planning process and has not provided them with market development funds or marching orders for selling systems based on its newly released Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate, which integrate the Media Center.
The signs at CES indicated to partners that Microsoft may have lost faith in the channel—or its product strategy—for pushing Media Center, and has decided to partner with top retailers to drive sales and services to the home.
"I don't think it was a slip. The budgeting disappeared," said one digital integrator as he looked out of the Las Vegas Convention Center onto Microsoft's Connected Home Pavilion, sponsored this year with Best Buy. "Last year there was no Best Buy. It was all about getting digital integrators. Best Buy is their channel now."
Partners acknowledge that they might be feeling the effects of the recent transition of responsibility for Windows Media Center to the Entertainment & Devices Division, led by the division president, Robbie Bach. But they are discouraged that Microsoft's absence comes as Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate hit the market last month.
"It is looking more and more that way, but I can't say with 100 percent certainty that Microsoft has abandoned integrators," said David Josephson, CEO of New York-based GVP.DSJ.
The GVP executive said Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., is taking a big risk alienating digital integrators, especially as Apple is gearing up to release a home server. "Everybody is talking Apple, Apple TV, saying that it works."
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