Josh's Blog

I think Microsoft is on the right track with the Xbox 360. The idea really is to get technology into the home and build around it. It is also very important to make it as simple to use as possible. However, I think Microsoft is missing the mark on some things.

Modularity - Microsoft is actually doing a surprising job of incorporating modularity into their Xbox 360. For example, they released the external HD drive. There is no reason to force people to pay for a Blue-ray or HD drive, if the consumer does not want it. I think it needs to be carried to the next level, though.

Microsoft should be putting out modular appliances. Microsoft just announced their Windows Home Server. The product sounds like it has promise and really has functionality that the home user can appreciate. But now if I want to purchase one, I am going to have yet another strange looking box I have to put somewhere in my house.

These appliances should have a common form factor so they all fit together nicely and have a common interface (hardware and software). With this section of the market, I really think Microsoft needs to take a chapter out of the Apple book. They already make the OS and have experience marketing hardware. Why don't they start producing their own hardware appliances?

A home firewall appliance, a home storage appliance, a home automation appliance, etc. I really think for them to truly enter the home, they need to interface all these appliances through a common hardware connection and a single management interface. The software UI of the Xbox 360 is already well laid out for something like that.

Online - Xbox Live is great piece of work, but one thing the Xbox lacks is a browser. You should be able to get your email and browse the internet from your living room. I should be able to use things like Google Documents (or a Microsoft equivalent) to type up a document or spreadsheet.

Speech Recognition - Ok, so this is more of a pipe dream, but speech recognition truly ads amazing usability to some common tasks. You could even use the Microsoft headset for it.

Television - Obviously I think that a media center should have television functionality. Microsoft seems to be addressing this with its IPTV service. We will just have to wait and see how it turns out.

Clearly I have written this article from a Microsoft viewpoint. I think at this point in time, only a few companies could pull something like this off. Two of them are Microsoft and Sony since they already have millions of units in homes today. I think Microsoft is well poised for a project like this because of their size and the current markets they work in. I don't know that they will actually catch on, though.