Microsoft Corp. may have cornered the market on operating systems, but the field of new consumer devices is wide open. Craig Mundie, senior vice president of Microsoft’s consumer platforms division, spoke recently with Mercury News reporters about WebTV and how Microsoft envisions future appliance-like consumer devices. This is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Q–How many WebTVs have been sold?
A–Around 350,000 total.
Q–Some say that’s a terrible failure; others say it’s a huge success.
A–We’re on the huge success side. If you look at the first-12-month numbers for any new consumer appliance, there are only two that were better than WebTV classic.
They were both TV add-on products: Direct satellite dishes did a million in their first year and DVD players have done about 650,000. Virtually anything else you can find, ranging as far back as the car, in their first 12 months of existence, sold less.
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Q–What has to happen before these kinds of devices catch on even more?
A–In the non-PC space, the appliance has to be self-managing. The consumer doesn’t want to think about “Which version am I running now? . . . If the Web adds a new feature, when do I get it?” It’s like the telephone. They pick it up. When somebody adds another area code or feature, they don’t want to think about it, they want to dial the phone.
Q–Who are your competitors in the WebTV space, now that Netchannel has gone south? Doesn’t there need to be a degree of competition?
A–Anytime you’re building any of these major new markets, it’s an expensive proposition. I think we’re sort of at a momentary lull, where a whole bunch of little companies who either had a poor product concept or didn’t have a lot of staying power went through one phase of the shakeout. But now I think you’re going to see an incredible number of people trying to copy WebTV conceptually and offer services like the WebTV service.