Today, over email, I found myself advising my wife’s friend on a potential Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) PC purchase.  In the course of all this, he asked what seemed like a simple technical question, but I realized later than it has wider ramifications.

His question was whether an MCE PC could replace his stereo receiver.

People familiar with this product line understand that MCE machines can integrate digital music and photos into their living room/home theater setups, and that they have DVR/PVR (TiVo-like) capabilities as well.  People more familiar with the products know that MCE machines can also replace their CD and DVD players, and even their FM tuners, and they can act as CD and DVD recorders.

But depending on the model you buy, you can also run stereo speakers, or even surround sound speakers (my HP z545 actually has 7.1 speaker outputs!) directly from the MCE machine.

So as long as you’re comfortable dispensing with AM radio, audio cassettes, and VHS (and assuming you’re satisfied with your MCE PC’s digital-analog converter), MCE machines can act as thoroughly integrated AV/digital media devices in a single box.  This makes these devices much more cost-effective than they might at first seem and I think it’s worth considering the fact home entertainment could evolve in this direction. 

And that could be a huge opportunity for Microsoft.  It could take them beyond the early adopter gadget freak market into the mainstream of consumer electronics.  And rather than just being an also-ran, Microsoft could have a killer product and a big, new revenue stream.

If Microsoft is serious about this market, they need to do a number of things to make the MCE devices have broader appeal.  Here’s a top ten list off the top off my head.  I may post more as I think of them:

• 10. Add Dolby Pro Logic for enhanced sound on 2-channel audio sources.
• 9. Add support for DVD Audio and/or SA-CD.  The latter would require MS and Sony to make nice…no easy task, but I think BillG wants it to happen.
• 8. Add DTS decoding capabilities for a better DVD experience (my MCE box has Dolby Digital built in, but I have to use the digital audio output into my AV receiver to get DTS decoding).
• 7. Add aux A/V inputs so old fogies like me can hook up their VHS decks, tape decks and turntables.
• 6. Add top-notch digital-analog conversion.
• 5. Strike OEM deals with audiophile manufacturers.
• 4. Consider a retail partner program akin to the authorized dealership programs many home entertainment brands have (imagine a Microsoft-certified installer coming to your home to set up your gear).
• 3. Add true HDTV support, not just through antenna signals, but by offering component video and DVI inputs (I know, I’m pushing it here).
• 2. Consider, as with the Xbox, building a dedicated software environment for Media Center devices that is not based on Windows XP.  To work in most peoples living rooms, these boxes shouldn’t require the kind of maintenance and patching Windows does.
• 1. (drum roll…) Realize that the living room is a major front in the battle against Linux.  TiVos are Linux-based (and they work very, very well) and HP has announced that they will introduce new media computers that are Linux-based.  If Microsoft wants to beat Linux, they need to look beyond the data center!

Friday night took us to Jazz at Lincoln Center, to hear the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, led by Wynton Marsalis.  This was, nominally, a late Christmas gift to my mother-in-law and her husband, but it was also a treat for us.

The funny thing about Jazz at Lincoln Center is that it’s not at Lincoln Center, but rather on the fifth floor of the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.  This “off-campus” facility has three performance venues (and, apparently, classroom space) and we were in the largest of the three, Frederick P. Rose Hall.  Although a larger setting than I prefer for jazz, this was a very nice space, with good acoustics (unlike some of the venues at Lincoln Center proper).  The other two spaces offer a smaller auditorium and a small club (albeit with “Coca Cola,” its corporate sponsor, embedded in its name) and I’m going to make it a point to get to both.

The music, not surprisingly, was excellent.  In addition to the full orchestra, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon and bassist Rodney Whitaker were on the program.  Whitaker was great, but Gordon was just positively amazing.  Check out his incredibly prolific discography on his Web site.  Unfortunately, a search of Napster (the new, legal one), MusicMatch, and MSN Music turned up only one album, “Bone Structure.”  I bought this and think it’s great, but not a good showcase of what I heard on Friday night.  I’m going to have to hit the Tower or J&R jazz dept. and pick up some of his CDs.

There were two other very special guests, a singer and a guitarist…so special that they weren’t on the program, and I can’t remember either of their names.  This is frustrating because the singer had a stunning voice – it was a cross between Aretha Franklin’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s -- and she was just a freshman in college!  She only did vocals on one number, but she had the audience mesmerized.

The great thing about the program was that all the numbers followed a train theme…music about trains, and music that really sounded like trains.  I was a bit surprised that the band finished their set without playing “Take the ‘A’ Train.”  Luckily they came back and played it for an encore, and because the gig was at Columbus Circle, Lauren and I took the A train home immediately afterward.

Microsoft today announced a new Workgroup edition of SQL Server (and also announced an OEM arrangement with Dell for it!).  A SQL 2K version is available immediately, and SQL 2005 will have Express, Developer, Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise editions.  Standard and Enterprise will continue to be the only non-developer versions that include Analysis Services, and their prices will increase a bit.  Meanwhile, the lower cost of Workgroup Edition (and the lack of cost for Express Edition) combined with the no-extra-license policy for passive failover servers and multi-core servers contribute to making SQL Server a pretty very cost-effective product compared to its competitors.  Tom Rizzo discusses the new product lineup here, and the press release is here.

I am enjoying immensely the reruns of "Welcome Back, Kotter", running in syndication and on an odd, seemingly religious/family values channel, called the Good Life Network.  My Windows Media Center PC is recording these reruns in the wee hours for me.

On a recent episode, in a scene in the schoolyard, I noticed that even though the 1970s set was wildly fake-looking, one of its attempts at NYC public schoolyard graffiti was rather realistic: "B.M.T. Sheiks."  For those who don't know, BMT is one of three disused names for divisions of the NYC Subway system.  The BMT lines were once run by the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, a private concern whose holdings were eventually taken over by the agency that is now the NY State government authority called the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  I don't know if the Sheiks actually existed, but the BMT Lines did (and do) serve the neighborhood where the show's Buchanan High School is seemingly located.

The B.M.T. Sheiks "tag" reminds me of a strange Manhattan public access cable show in the 80s called the "Crank Call Show."  The show basically consisted of private school teenagers calling in, saying something stupid, giggling, and then hanging up.  There was one guy who kept calling in saying his name was Muhammad, and that he sold incense on the D Train and the (Times Square - Grand Central) Shuttle.  That was funny, because there really was such a person who really did that.

Why did I put this posting into the Tech Industry category?  Because it turns out that Steve Lasker, a member of the VB Team and a former RD, grew up here in NYC and worked on the crew of the Crank Call Show.  I was in stitches when he told me this a few weeks ago, and he was impressed that I even knew what the Crank Call Show was.

I never in a million years would imagine that my VB world would collide with my NYC 80s public access TV show/subway riding world.  I guess Times Square really is the crossroads of the world.

Did anyone catch Darryl Taft's piece in eWeek this week: "Real Software Slams Microsoft's Patent Effort"?  Apparently, Real Software (not the RealPlayer folks) has a (very) VB-like cross-platform product called REALbasic, and thus objects to a Microsoft patent application for the IsNot keyword that originates from VB.

Paul Vick, whose name is on the patent application, and who is tech lead of the VB team, blogged about the patent application back in November.  From reading the post, Paul seems pretty ambivalent about the efficacy of patenting IsNot, to say the least.  In fact he feels the entire premise of software patents is harmful.  He further argues that Microsoft, like other software companies (IBM key among them) routinely file for numerous patents, as a defensive measure.  Typically the companies don't enforce the patents in a way harmful to other parties but, so the logic goes, need to protect themselves from someone else filing a patent that could be used harmfully against them.  Effectively, this argument likens the reality of the software patent landscape to the nuclear "mutually assured destruction" regimen that practically defined the cold war.  Hardly a comforting analogy.

I haven't made up my mind on this one.  But I'll offer a few observations:

• It's very difficult, intellectually, to argue that IsNot is patentable when the != syntax is effectively in the public domain, and the <> notation is standard mathematical usage.  I know IsNot is for objects rather than scalars, but come on...get real (sorry).
• Darryl Taft is one of the fairer reporters out there, with regards to Microsoft products, its strategy, and its role in the marketplace.  So I'm concerned when even someone of his wisdom writes an article that comes off so inflammatory (and presents the dubious notion, albeit through attributed quotes, that Microsoft's patent is meant to stave off erosion of Visual Studio's market share in the face of competition from Linux IDEs).  If Taft is saying stuff like this, Microsoft has a PR problem here and they need to address it.
• Microsoft takes a lot of heat for doing things that other vendors view as standard practice.  Microsoft is very much in the spotlight, so they need to accept this and not gripe about it.  Meanwhile, I hope people, when considering this issue, keep in mind that Microsoft cannot disenfranchise itself from diligent competition by abstaining from what all of their major competitors do.  The question is, does trying to get a patent on a keyword like IsNot go beyond that kind of reasonable parity?

Something tells me we haven't heard the last of this topic.