Windows Phone Thoughts: Media2Go Devices

"One of two major product announcements Microsoft made at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft "Media2Go" is a platform for portable media players that will begin shipping from OEMs such as Viewsonic in late 2003. From a practical standpoint, Media2Go is essentially a video iPod, albeit with understandably larger dimensions. The devices themselves were co developed with Microsoft partners such as Intel, which designed the original prototype device, but Microsoft was solely responsible for the software side. In this preview, we'll take a look at Media2Go, both from a platform perspective, and from how it works in everyday use."



Paul Thurrott has put together a brief overview of the forthcoming Media2Go platform from Microsoft - a Windows CE .NET-based device - with a few pictures and description of the device. This is basically Microsoft trying to trump the iPod - but, like so many other Microsoft projects, the success or failure will depend largely on the OEMs. The OS might be perfect for this application, the GUI might be lovely, but if the OEMs build ugly devices with poor performance, Media2Go will flop. I wish Microsoft would just build their own device like this - all their hardware is top-notch in quality, and quite nice to look at too! But it's the Microsoft way to build platforms, not devices - time will tell if this is a successful strategy or not.