While that WinTV Warning was made just for laughs, it is relevant to the challenges Microsoft faces if it intends to make its WinCE OS ubiquitous in convergence consumer appliances. The Consumer Electronics manufacturers cannot have such screens popping up on their devices; especially if it's Microsoft's goal to make those appliances equipped with WinCE, etc. to converge with Windows computers. If the Consumer Electronics manufacturers have those screens pop up then their products either won't sell or will be returned by the consumers. And, even more importantly, they won't want to do anything that might tarnish their brand. So, it might be conceivable the there will be three potential alternatives to WinTV. The first is Sony's OS. The second is Apple's "Mac OS Lite" (a k a: QuickTime 4.X+). And the third is a Linux variant with an easy to navigate GUI.
We'll delve into this topic later on, but the above comments are the basic premises regarding the challenges Microsoft faces in successfully launching its Consumer Electronics devices in the Golden Convergence market; even the NexGen WebTV boxes.
Until then.....
