Microsoft News Tracker

You may recall that in the high definition DVD wars Microsoft and Toshiba are the leaders of the HD DVD camp while Sony leads the Blu-ray forces. Now there’s word that the battle is all over - HD DVD versus Blu-ray - The porn industry says HD DVD:

Knowing their audience quite well, the adult entertainment industry holds their annual get together in Las Vegas to coincide with the CES. There is also a very pertinent crossover between the adult and tech industries - porn has a tendency to drive, and be driven, by technology. Which means HD DVD when it comes to high-def.

Quite famously in the war between Betamax and VHS the latter won especially because the adult industry preferred it. If you’ve been around long enough, you probably remember that the very early home video rental stores were primarily responsible for driving Betamax out of the market. And those stores carried almost exclusively pornographic content.

Although the market environments from then do not really compare to today’s home video market, parallels are drawn between the Betamax-VHS battle to the ongoing and escalating fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD. One of the key questions at this year’s CES actually is “Which high-def format will win the current format war - Blu-ray or HD DVD?” Surprisingly, it seems that there is no such question in the minds of the adult industry luminaries.

The rest of the article explains some technical reasons why HD DVD is a better choice for small publishers. There’s also an unverified report today that Sony has forbidden “adult” Blu-ray content which would make the choice even clearer.

The “adult entertainment” industry is not shy about preposterous self promotion, but the “porn makes new technologies succeed” meme has been around for years. I can recall arguments from over a decade ago that “adult entertainment” was going to be the driver for adoption of multimedia hardware features on PCs. That never came to pass (at least in the non-Web form anticipated), but the evidence is better in other technology areas. I doubt the battle is really over, but chalk this one up as one more player (albeit nonstandard) weighing in for HD DVD.

Update: For a less arousing status on the format wars, see this overview.

Update 1/19: More on the Sony/Blu-ray position here.

Update 1/27: Sony says there’s really no Blu-ray adult content prohibition.

For a week seemingly dominated by consumer electronics of the non-PC variety, there was still an abundance of Windows Vista news. I’ve already mentioned the December sales estimates and the craplets, but here are more that didn’t get a post of their own:

Windows Vista Named “Best of CES” at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show in the computers and hardware category.

UK schools advised to hold off on Vista, Office 2007

Microsoft needs to make a stronger case for U.K. schools to upgrade to Windows Vista and Office 2007 as neither product contains essential new features, according to a report from a British educational advisory group.

Ouch! The full report is here, but part of their beef was also the potential for expensive Microsoft lock-in and in response, Microsoft makes changes to education licensing, promises more.

Conspiracy theorists start your engines, NSA Helped Microsoft Make Vista Secure.

Vista Casts A Pall On PC Gaming, most particularly casual downloadable games.

iDefense offers bounty for Vista and IE7 flaws. The good guys are offering $8,000 (actually up to $12K). Less savory characters apparently are asking $50K for their Vista exploits.

Who’s Inflating Vista Security Expectations?

Vista marketing fun:

• Who Wants to Win a Trip into Space?
• Show Us Your Wow which is hopefully unrelated to the Wife with Windows Vista Program.

Yesterday’s news revealed pent up demand for Windows Vista on Wall Street. No, it wasn’t demand for actual installation of Microsoft’s new PC operating system. It was traders jumping on any report of increased sales to validate their hopes that somehow Vista will put a little unaccustomed life into Microsoft’s cash cow:

December sales of Microsoft Corp.’s Vista were stronger than expected, helping the company’s shares become the biggest Thursday gainer on the Dow Jones industrial average.

The index was up 72.82, to a record close of 12514.98.

Sales data on the new Windows Vista operating system drove investors to boost Microsoft stock by $1.04, or 3.5 percent, to close at $30.70, after shares earlier reached a new 52-week high of $30.75 on the Nasdaq.

Of course, Microsoft’s share price wasn’t hurt by the general market surge, but this report bears further examination:

Sales of Windows Vista to businesses were stronger than expected during the operating system’s debut month, according to a report from NPD Group.

The sales outpaced the first month’s tally for Windows 2000 and only slightly trailed that for Windows XP, the market researcher said Thursday. Commercial revenue from Vista in December was 62.5 percent above that racked up by Windows 2000 in March 2000, its first month after launch. But Vista’s total is 3.7 percent below what Microsoft got in the commercial channel for Windows XP in November 2001, its first month on the market.

In addition, the average price of Vista was about 4 percent higher than of Windows 2000 and roughly similar to that of Windows XP, NPD said.

The NPD folks only measure Vista sold through the reseller channel (not directly from Microsoft) and opined that these results were “strong” and “impressive.” It’s a little hard to see why and a moment’s thought and knowledge of the history of Windows 2000 and XP can provide less rosy interpretations. Moreover, the meager 4% per copy price differential seems to put paid to Microsoft’s hopes of upselling pricier Vista versions, although consumers may be a better target for that. However, the key point is that even a glimmer of Vista hope seems to shake up Microsoft shares so stand by for an earthquake on January 25 when quarterly results are announced.

Update: Joe Wilcox gets with NPD and thoroughly spelunks the numbers. Excerpt:

I don’t doubt NPD’s data, just what some news stories make it out to be. Swenson released comparisons at a reporter’s request; no report was published. While the information NPD releases to its clients is no doubt complete, what’s available to the news media is not. NPD did not make available unit shipments, SKUs sold, ratios of upgrades versus full licenses or breakdown across volume licensing plans. In addition to the questionable comparisons, what’s missing would make a huge difference in evaluating the quality of Vista early licensing sales compared Windows 2000 or XP.

I doubt any of that will inhibit the punters.