ShowShifter Closes The Doors And Is Up For Sale
ShowShifter was one of the first DVR / PVR software packages available for the PC and it is now one of the first to go. They have apparently gone out of business and the whole enterprise is up for sale, including the employees and the ShowShifter software product itself.
I don’t think this bodes well for ReplayTV’s recent exit from the hardware business to move into the software only business. With the explosion of Windows XP Media Center on retail shelves, it’s going to be an uphill battle for any company trying to sell a software DVR or PVR package for windows based PCs. At this point, manufacturers such as HP, Compaq, Gateway, and eMachines are putting Windows XP Media Center on almost every computer they make — including laptops! ReplayTV will end up facing the same problem in the software DVR market that TiVo currently faces in the hardware DVR market — if people are already getting DVR software on their computer from Windows XP Media Center for free, why would they pay more money for another piece of software that does the same thing?
Without some killer feature that Windows XP Media Center doesn’t have, I don’t think any software PVR or DVR can succeed against the Microsoft juggernaut.
Technorati Tags: ShowShifter, DVR, PVR, Windows XP Media Center, ReplayTV, Microsoft, TiVo
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MegaZone said
am March 9 2006 @ 8:39 pm
I said the same thing as soon as the RTV announcement was made. WindowsXP MCE is becoming a de facto standard on new machines, and *all* Windows Vista versions will inherently be media center capable. Media center is pretty good, to be honest, and what can the third party vendors offer over and above the ‘free’ capabilities users will already have? TiVo differentiates themselves by having a slew of features the other DVRs lack.