It was back on June 12, 2004, when I wrote about the release of the Portable Media Center platform. Today, Chris Lanier reported via Jason Tsang’s blog that David Bono, a Microsoft employee, in the microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter.portable newsgroup announced that Microsoft is no longer licensing the PMC software. Well, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to anyone since the Zune came out, incorporating the PMC capabilities. When I played with first PMC released by Creative, I was not impressed — I was right.
Here is the full post from the newsgroup:
Microsoft is no longer licensing the PMC software. Here is an announcement that was sent out last year to our PMC partners:
In early 2006, Microsoft released the second version of Windows Mobile for Portable Media Centers to our partners. The second version of the Portable Media Center software enhanced the end user experience and enabled partners to build smaller, less expensive and more competitive devices.
As part of the ongoing review of our product investments, we have decided to take what we have learned from our investments in Portable Media Center and focus our product and marketing resources on building media experiences on connected Windows Mobile powered devices.
With the re-investment of resources in media experiences on connected Windows Mobile powered devices, Portable Media Center 2.0 is the last version of our Portable Media Center software under the Windows Mobile brand. We do not plan any future Portable Media Center software upgrades or marketing activities.
Thank you for all your support- Microsoft is proud of its work, the work of its partners and the devices and services delivered as a result of
those relationships. We will continue to work with existing Portable Media Centers licensees to ensure that devices they are developing come to market.
Now, I’m waiting for the next version of Zune, which should be smaller and thinner…