Another One Bites the Dust – Windows Live for TV

By ScottIsAFool on June 10, 2008 7:53 AM

8 comments

With all the news about Windows Live/Live Search products being dropped for good lately we almost forgot to add another one to the list – one that never made it out of beta. After the first drop of Codename Orbit hit the web back in December 2006 and a little update released the following April it got silent around the promising Windows Live for TV project.

Two weeks ago Chris Lanier spotted a post on TGB that sets an endpoint to this uncertainty for now. Windows Live for TV is dead. The product team has been moved around to a different part of Microsoft and we will most likely not see the product come out of beta – at least that is what a program manager been quoted to say as a source.

At best this could mean that the team has been merged into the Media Center Edition team and that some parts of the software will eventually show up in an upcoming Media Center update (but there have not been any hints about this happening with Fiji for now) – at worst we wont ever hear about any of the features again…

Thanks to Andy for reminding us to post about this….

UPDATE: Now we have an even more official confirmation of this – the beta service is being shut down for good on June 24th according to a post on the team blog.

Posted in News | Tags: Deadpool, Media Center, Orbit, TV, Windows, Windows Live

Comments

PSCSmoke

MS shifted gears to U-Verse and the IPTV architecture of that project.

Lately there has been a wonderous clean-up of the sandbox, kinda like raking the old Zen meditation garden.

Stage 1 : delete projects that aren’t on the cool list
Stage 2: ….
Stage 3: PROFIT!
quikboy

Another failure? At least they’re working on throwing out throwing bad projects out the door, and hopefully management goes somewhere that’s useful.

Besides, most Microsoft betas are a joke. In the end, they either:

a) Come out exactly the same as they were in beta – With only minor performance fixes or whatnot. No new requested features, removing things or whatever. Case in point : Toolbar, Live Gallery, Favorites, etc.

b) Come out completely different from their beta form – As in they weren’t in the beta, but was added when it was released, making the beta completely useless. Case in point : MSN Video (Soapbox?), MSN Silverlight Toolbar, Live Search Shopping, Live Hotmail, Live Spaces, etc.

c) Get killed off – Live TV, Live Barcode, WiFi Center, etc.

Most betas are pointless. For some reason, I don’t think MS always takes the feedback seriously. If they did, the A, B, and C shouldn’t be happening. There’s rarely ever any betas where user suggestions actually make it.
foaf

Only one I am fussed about is WL Messenger for Media Center. It’s badly needed, and would be a USP over the competition from other IM apps.
ChaosAngelic

This is getting annoying… I was really waiting for this one to come out. It gets really annoying when you’re watching a movie in Media Center and someone sends you an IM. This type of thing could easily fix that… well, the 360 has WLM functionality, so I guess I’ll be using mine more often.
quikboy

Oh, and MSN WiFi Hotspots is dead by the way.

http://hotspot.msn.com/

It conveniently redirects you to Jiwire, a much better service. They even use Virtual Earth.
Alimaggs

Shame really. Any idea on what’s going all with the VOIP features of Messenger these days? Verizon drops out soon don’t they?
Chris

Alimaggs: Yes they do, we’ve got a post coming up on that hopefully this weekend (or when I find time!)
Alimaggs

Good to know. I went out and bought the VOIP phones (Phillips Live Messenger), but here in the UK at least, they dropped being able to charge up using Mastercard and Visa leaving only American Express and Diner Card which very few people in the UK actually have. So it’s been a bit of a dead service for me.

Hopefully, whatever takes its place will be more readily available.

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