New Clients for Windows Media

Digital media took center stage in Microsoft’s announcements at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in early January, as the company announced a new reference platform for portable digital media players, new licensing terms for Windows Media for ISVs and device manufacturers, and a digital media add-on for Windows XP. The barrage of announcements highlights Microsoft’s belief that the ability to create, store, and distribute digital media will become an increasingly important selling point for PCs and Windows Servers.

Media2Go Platform

Microsoft and Intel have teamed up to develop a new reference platform, called Media2Go, for portable video and audio players. Similar in concept to Microsoft’s Pocket PC platform for handheld computers and the Smartphone platform for wireless phones, Media2Go will be based on the next version of Windows CE .NET (currently code-named McKendric). It will enable portable devices to quickly and easily download digital media from a Windows XP PC, and then organize and play that media. The devices will use Intel’s XScale family of processors.