Microsoft in talks for new TV service

Microsoft has, shall we say, a bit fragmented in its business operations. As the mighty company moves towards integration of its products at what we hope is an increasing pace, news comes that they are trying to add to the livingroom wars by possibly becoming a cable provider of some sort. No real specifics in the article, but we do know licensing deals move at glacier speeds.

News of Microsoft’s plans come as the pay-television industry has sought to allay investor concerns that consumers are fleeing expensive subscription packages for cheaper online services operated by companies such as Netflix Inc and Hulu, which both charge $7.99 per month for streamed shows and movies. The phenomenon is called “cord-cutting.”

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  • PAPutzback
    November 29, 2010 6:28 pm

    What a mess. Everyone wants

    What a mess. Everyone wants to join in the cord cutting game but each person can only offer a piece of the pie. By the time you put them altogether you might have a half dozen separate bills just to get somewhere near what you would have with the cord attached.

    And how do they call it cord cutting when in reality you need to buy a fatter cord to get all this to work. I am up to 60 bucks for 20mbps down now in order to feed Netflix to 3 xboxes and two HTPCs. 

    All this hype about cord cutting is just going to make my life nuts having to try to explain to all the non techies that it is not something they should consider and that I am not going to help each one of them hook up their p4 to their HDTV.

    • DavidStein
      December 1, 2010 4:25 pm

      technically its a lot smaller

      technically its a lot smaller of a pipe, as HD channels on comcast take up about ~13Mbps each, and the older analog SD channels are even less efficient with their bandwidth (~40Mbps, if i remember correctly. i think you can get two full 20Mbps channels or 3 further compressed, ie ~13Mbps, HD channels per old analog channel)
      of course, television bandwidth isn’t so much of a big deal to comcast since its the same for everyone and isn’t 2-way so they dont mind selling it for much cheaper than internet accss.
  • Hogues
    November 29, 2010 6:38 pm

    I guess we have to wait and

    I guess we have to wait and see exactly what MS is going to offer before judging.  I agree with PAPutzback, cutting the cord is too fragmented to make it appealing to me.  Mainly, I can’t get all of the sports that I want without the cord, and until i can, I’ll stick with Comcast.  

    The only solution that would make me excited about this would be some sort of ala cart solution.  However, I think that bandwith would end up being a problem and cable co’s would find a way to hit us back, namely, charge us more for broadband.

  • George L. Schmauch Jr.
    November 29, 2010 6:43 pm

    Hopefully they’ll have better

    Hopefully they’ll have better luck than Google has been having lately.  Then again, if they do, Google will have a pretty valid complaint about being shut out of some of these services.

    • mikinho
      December 1, 2010 4:32 pm

      skirge01 wrote:Hopefully

      [quote=skirge01]

      Hopefully they’ll have better luck than Google has been having lately.  Then again, if they do, Google will have a pretty valid complaint about being shut out of some of these services.

      [/quote]

      The difference there is that Microsoft already has a relationship with the MSOs and I’m willing to bet the MSO want Microsoft to provide a service in this area.

  • Chasseur
    November 30, 2010 7:24 pm

    I hope it will work with

    I hope it will work with Windows Media Center too. However, I’m afraid that the hardest part is to offer enough content or channels…