Don't anyone say I didn't warn the rest of you.  MS doesn't make money on Media Center and has never properly educated their users on the capabilities of Media Center anyway.  I believe it's only a matter of time....unfortunately.  But you can all keep DEMANDING special treatement and DRM breaking features if you fell like it....sigh...Q

If you simply click on Vista you will still find info about Media Center.  In fact it's mentioned in the 'Entertainment on the go' section so that's a good sign that Media Center will always exist in Windows Operating systems.  So it's still kind of hard to tell what MS is doing with the "connected home" media solution.  I guess someone like me will continue to wait for MS's endgame in the connected lifestyle.  Q.

There is a great video on there about recording tv with your Windows Vista computer.  It doesn't mention extenders though.  That is either a bad sign or marketing dropping the ball on the concept of connecting a TV.  I don't get it.  You would think between Linksys, HP and Microsoft they would be shouting from the mountain tops about the ease of connecting YOUR NEW HDTV to your Windows Vista computer or laptop.  I just don't get it...Q

I'm not trying to make a case for Media Center to be listed, but I think it is interesting that it isn't.

Microsoft doesn't make money on Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer, yet they are both listed under the main Windows dropdown.  Even better, Media Center is targeted at two other main places; home and entertainment.  Both of these are right there, with no Media Center listed under either.

Media Center is a synergy between partners, everyone makes money and certainly everyone stands to make even MORE money if there was just a little more attention and support for the product in the first place.  

I mean let's face it, the average enthusiast is willing to drop a good chunk of change knowing a product either a.) already has good support or b.) has a growing market by the day.  The ball is being dropped here, to be sure, but it is far from over.

I hope MS does more to promote and open up this platform for development and treats it with the potential it truly has.  I know Bill Gates had a wonderful vision of media integration within the home and I sure hope that now that he is further in the background that things are shuffled aside.  Anyone go to CES, the media home is awesome stuff!

I am glad that Windows 7 appears to relieve my fears.  I agree that there is a lucrative small market for Media Center currently.  I just wish MS could bring it all together in a way that the average(none of us apply) user.  I am still shocked at the inability of Media Center, Zune, and XBOX to truely work together.  I appreciate how much they do work together though, so don't get me wrong.  I think there is a new function in Windows 7 that makes media sharing even easier if not seamless...that's a great start...Q

"Microsoft doesn't make money on Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer..."

Just because there isn't a direct line between A and B (MP & IE and dollars coming into MS) doesn't mean that MS doesn't make money off them.  Why would Microsoft have gone to so much trouble (and spent so much money) to squash Netscape with IE if somehow, maybe in the long run, it wouldn't help with Windows' market penetration and share?  Same with Media Center.

I'll compare it to an article I read about Bank of America's ATMs awhile back.  Despite the common perception that an ATM can substitute for a human bank teller and machines are usually more cost effective than their human counterparts, Bank of America claims that because ATMs still have to be serviced by human beings and the machines themselves (and their support infrastructure) are very expensive that ATMs aren't actually cost effective for them versus tellers.  Huh?!?!?!  So why do they have so many?  Because their market research showed that one of the reasons that people bank with BoA instead of their competitors is because of the convenience of BoA's widespread ATMs (that was one of my deciding factors, too).  So even though the ATMs are at best a wash in terms of cost effectiveness they are a big reason people choose BoA over their rivals.  So the ATMs are the price that BoA pays for getting more market share.

Same with Microsoft and Windows.  How many of us here would have sprung for Vista Ultimate or Home Premium if it didn't include Media Center?  Or, appealing to an even bigger crowd, how many people would want to go to the trouble of installing Windows (or even buying an OEM system) and then having to turn around and buy and install a separate web browser just to get on the Internet?  Even if we prefer Firefox or Opera, we probably found and downloaded them with the IE that came with Windows.

And IE is the reference standard.  I know if I'm having trouble with web page displaying properly in Firefox the first thing I do is fire up IE and see if it works right using that.

Companies generally lose money on warranty service, but would you buy a piece of hardware that didn't have it?

So Windows has morphed from being just the glue that holds applications and hardware together to actually including some basic (and some not-so-basic) applications.  If you need Photoshop you aren't going to be happy with MS Paint; if you need Adobe Premier you're not going to be happy with Movie Maker, but at least the average user get some basic functionality right out of the box with Windows.

This would be the exact reason that Microsoft has so strongly resisted even anti-trust action to include more than basic OS functionality with Windows.  And Macs and Linux do the same thing.

So even if you can't see a straight line between IE, Media Player, etc. and Windows sales there's still a link.  The question now is will MS position Media Center to be more on the level of Photoshop instead of Paint, or will we eventually come to consider Media Center to be the "starter" application that comes with Windows (like Outlook Express, Movie Maker, WordPad, Paint, etc.) that we put up with until we go out and buy a "real" Media Center application?  I'm not sure I'm going to like the answer to that question...