Windows Media and Apple

Michael Gartenberg | January 18, 2006, 10:49 AM

It's not really news anymore but here's some late thoughts on Microsoft's ceasing further development of Windows Media for Mac OS. First, it's not news. There's been no update since the version 9 player so it seems that Microsoft is just making official what's clearly be de facto. So why are they doing it? That one's easy. There's simply no money or incentive for them to make this work. Right now, media on OS X is Quicktime and MSFt knows that rather well. There's little point in making DRM content work, especially since no MTP devices can work on Mac OS (of course, they could try to make that happen as well but again for little gain). There's no doubt that iTunes and iPods are the standard for the Mac user base so just as they dropped IE support, so too goes Windows Media. The implications though are important. Even though MSFT is providing some third party solutions to still allow Windows Media to play through Quicktime, the solution is far from perfect. (try using XM radio over the Internet on a Mac with the new solution. It doesn't work. You need to re-install WMP9 and then disable the plug-in in Quicktime) This means that Apple users are effectively locked out of lot of content that publishers want them to see.

At the end of the day, MSFT is far more concerned about the number of users installing iTunes (and Quicktime) on Windows machines than it is about Mac users using Windows Media. Apple is doing a good job of getting users to install their software and their DRM on Windows machines and that's a concern for MSFT. Given the poor success Microsoft is having competing with Apple on the home front, it's no surprise they'll put more efforts enhancing the Windows experience, rather than wasting efforts courting the Mac user base.

There's a lot more happening in this space. As more services are launched in the weeks and months ahead, the issue of what content will play where will become even more important. This event is more about what will be in the future than what's at stake in the short term.