Sitting in our own little worlds, it's always hard to tell if we perceive things the way they really are. For example, late last year, I chewed through a ton of print space extolling the virtues of Microsoft's Media Center Edition platform. Perhaps because I'd attended the reviewer's workshop for MCE and got to see the OS at work with music services, a Creative Zen PMC, and so on, I was completely sold on the platform and was sure it would take the world by storm. At last, the road for PCs to storm the living room was open.

And then...what? After the holidays and the Digital Joy mall kiosks, it seemed like MCE dropped off the planet. Was that true? Where the was the hoopla, the channel advertising, the component vendors banging the MCE drum? I started to hear buzz about MCE posting disappointing sales. Finally, when it came time to build my own MCE dream box last week, it was a disaster. Microsoft's hardware list covered TV tuners, graphics cards, and some networking devices, but that's it. So when I spent two entire days fighting my way to the realization that MCE 2005 is not (yet) compatible with NVIDIA's nForce4 SLI for Intel chipset. (As I was attempting to use twin MSI 6800GT cards, a company rep confided to me that I was the first person he'd ever heard of trying to run an SLI configuration under MCE. Given that MCE 2005 launched seven months ago, I find this both remarkable and absurd.)

So I switched to Intel's 955X reference board, which worked like a champ...and wasn't compatible with the silent OCZ ModStream PSU I'd selected because the ModStream, like most desktop power supplies, doesn't support an 8-wire ATX12V connector. OCZ's PowerStream did work, but I had to break it to make it fit in the living room-friendly SilverStone case I'd picked. And the Zalman 7700-Cu CPU cooler I'd picked for its silence wouldn't fit, either. From a white box perspective, it couldn't have been a worse disaster. So perhaps the view on MCE from my planet was right, after all.

Or maybe not. I recently learned from Microsoft that two million copies of Media Center Edition have shipped to date, and of those one million are MCE 2005. Microsoft didn't know what to project for 2005 sales figures, but all Microsoft sources agree that one million copies since October exceeds their expectations. That said, even company insiders had to admit that the last six months haven't seen any fresh efforts from within Microsoft to help push MCE into the channel.

"We, as a company, are really good at launching products," says Microsoft's Patrick Durocher, marketing manager, worldwide system builder channel. "We're learning now to be better about sustaining sales momentum."

As I write this, Microsoft is in the midst of rolling out its Start Something campaign, an extension of the XP Reloaded effort aimed at keeping interest alive in the four-year-old XP platform until Longhorn arrives in late 2006 (hopefully). According to Durocher, part of the Start Something campaign will focus on promoting MCE, and new materials from Microsoft will seek to involve the channel in Start Something over the next couple of months. I really hope that Start Something starts waking up to MCE's existence, because when I Googled "Microsoft Start Something", the first hit took me to www.windows.com/Passion/main.html. On this Start Something main page, there isn't one reference to MCE. In the list of categories you can "start," Microsoft mentions cooking and travel, but not television. Under the music category, Windows Media Player 10 and the Rio Carbon portable music player are shown, but not MCE or a Personal Media Center device.

So here's my call to Microsoft: If you're going to bring MCE to the channel, get serious about it. A graphics card plus OS bundle discount combined with three season-old Web pages is not a channel program and doesn't make life much easier on system builders when they want to sell your product. No one expects you to push end-users to white box MCE systems over OEM machines (although that sure would be nice), but the fact that Microsoft does not have a Designed for Windows Media Center Edition program in place—or even planned—for components beyond graphics cards, TV tuners, and a few networking items nearly negligent. You know that system builders don't have the resources to go through extensive configuration validation. They need guidance, and I have to believe that somehow Microsoft has the ability to come up with a logo program for PC components of all stripes that are optimized for the MCE experience and are guaranteed to work (and fit) well together.

For a role model, look no further than Intel. For $150 million, the Centrino campaign lifted wireless networking from obscurity to the mainstream. I'm sure Microsoft has the resources to do something similar with media center computing. Over at Intel, Frank Raimondi is in charge of gathering the right manufacturers around platform initiatives, getting everyone on the same page, and then bringing that group to the channel in a manner that helps everyone generate and build sales. He's doing it right now with whitebooks.

Durocher tells me that Microsoft has a team that does the same thing. Now, I'd like to see proof of that. MCE will be due for a refresh in the fall. Let's hope the channel will be a more integral part of that effort than it has been in the past.

Walking into Costco yesterday, I was greeted by a phalanx of plasma, LCD, and DLP screens all playing the same HDTV baseball footage. It was a bit like suddenly donning bee-vision glasses. Disconcerting as it was, this dose of sensory overload drives home one critical point: HD is here. It's not just some enthusiast spec being batted around in home theater showrooms. The trouble is that government forces are working to regulate this space for private interests—interests that conflict with customer usage and your ability to build value-add systems. (In all fairness to EDTV, though, DVDs often look better on an EDTV display because the 480p resolution of DVDs matches the EDTV spec and requires no distorting up-conversion.) The FCC has a December 31, 2006, deadline for the U.S. television market to transition to all-HDTV roadcasting—provided that 85% of consumers are able to receive HDTV signals in their homes. So the industry push to get HDTV in everybody's hands is immediate and imperative.

Why imperative? The answer depends on who you ask. Ask a consumer who has spent his whole life with standard definition TV and you'll probably hear, "Beats me. I'm in no rush." And if this guy went into Costco like I did and saw the cascade of big screens waiting there, he'd still be in no rush because those sets in that environment just don't look that good. The input signals have been split to death. No one takes the time to properly calibrate and tune the sets. And a warehouse setting is simply useless for trying to convey the beauty of hi-def video.

So I submit to you that there is a substantial opportunity for resellers to cash in on the HDTV bandwagon. Just as with the PCs to which HDTV sets can connect, there will be a large segment of the market that buys blindly through mass sales channels and another segment that buys from resellers who can demonstrate competitive advantages and educate buyers on quality and an optimal experience. If you still haven't seen for yourself why HDTV is a must-have (and must-sell), do so. A properly configured, high quality HDTV display is simply breathtaking and all but sells itself.

Now, getting back to the imperative issue, the content producers are in a huge hurry to make the switch to digital because it will allow them to finally prohibit fair use—er, I mean piracy—because with a digital TV stream, you can implement digital rights management, just like with a Windows Media or QuickTime file. You're already seeing subscription channels like HBO implement proprietary schemes to thwart HD content recording. The FCC has been working to implement a universal control technology called the broadcast flag.

In the Motion Picture Association of America's words, "the broadcast flag is a sequence of digital bits embedded in a television program that signals that the program must be protected from unauthorized redistribution." The flag can be turned on or off for each broadcast program as the content producer contracts with the broadcaster. According to the FCC, consumers would still be able to make copies of content for personal use only, but the language is so vague that there is no indication of how recordings could be stored and copied—if they can be copied at all. The FCC did not return my request for a comment.

This is an important issue for system builders because the broadcast flag is not about television; it's about PCs and convergence. When I spoke with ATI at the beginning of May, the company was preparing to pull all HDTV WONDER cards off of store shelves on July 1, the deadline on which the FCC dictated that all TV tuning devices being sold must be broadcast flag-enabled. Fortunately, a Washington D.C. court struck down the deadline, saying that the FCC was exceeding its jurisdiction. This in turn has sent the FCC back to Congress, where it will ask for the authority to implement its system.

But let's say the FCC wins and enforces the broadcast flag. You will no longer be able to sell any hardware you want, only hardware that complies with the broadcast flag. Your users will not be able to use the PC you sell them in whatever manner they want. Open source software that ignores the broadcast flag will be illegal because programmers can easily tweak programs to record anything. Given that trusted computing is supposed to be a seamless, secure welding of the hardware, OS, and applications, perhaps open source operating systems would become illegal, too. The computer industry has become the magnificent success story it is today because the industry has been allowed to regulate and innovate itself. The MPAA, working through its stooge, the FCC, would be the opening canon blast that reverses that process and in doing so removes many of the value-add opportunities that distinguish white box systems from the OEMs. The MPAA, you may recall, is the same group that predicted public access to fair use VCRs would destroy life as we know it when in fact over half of all movie revenues now come from rentals.

If you participate in computer industry associations, ask them to lobby against FCC intervention—their job is to protect your livelihood, after all.

In a recent issue of RAM, writer Chris Angelini detailed his less than ideal experiences with trying to resell an HP server to a consulting client. Angelini's tale of woe and waste is an excellent case study in why white box server resellers will continue to thrive, but we're also not so limited as to think that all resellers will build their servers and workstations from the ground up. Tier-one names intrinsically carry value to all but those who intimately understand how the white box channel works. But are the tier-ones actually ready and willing to be your channel partner?

After listening first-hand to Angelini's bid for System Builder Sob Story of the Year, I got to thinking about it. You don't get to be the #1 or #2 OEM by botching server sales like that. Could it be that HP relies on direct sales and only handles channel "influencer" partners like Angelini as an afterthought? I tried asking HP to find out.

"About two-thirds of our worldwide sales, which are about $80 billion, go through or are in some way influenced by a partner," said HP media relations rep Glenn Rossman.

I asked him how HP reconciled selling systems to resellers while still selling direct to end users.

"We're interested in getting our products into as many hands as possible," he answered. "Our selling motions reflect the way people buy. HP products are available through retail, through resellers, through channel partners, through our own sales force, and over the Internet, although different products sell through different sales motions."

I went back and asked Angelini about the ML110 server he tried to buy. It turns out the same box is not only available to channel system builders like himself but also e-tailers like CDW as well as direct to end-users from HP. End-user pricing is approximately the same regardless of sales outlet.

OK, so if there isn't much outlet segmentation in the server space, how about partner benefits? Rossman directed me to HP's Partner Portal at www.hp.com/partners/us. The site gives a bullet point list of portal benefits—sales information and tools mostly—but restricts further offerings until the resellers applies for an account and password. When Angelini talked to HP sales about his pending server sale, the agent told him about the 6% to 10% commissions offered to "influencer" partners. Thus as soon as the sale was completed, Angelini applied for a partner account and access to all of the applicable HP program benefits. HP didn't acknowledge receipt of the application for an entire month, and that's the point when the application had to start the review phase.

When all of Angelini's ordering and delivery troubles set in, HP apologized but never once made any effort to make amends or further court Angelini as a channel partner. The only benefits HP ever pointed out to Angelini was the influencer's commission. I asked Angelini if he felt his experience was atypical of what a small partner starting out with a major OEM could expect.

"No," he answered, "because I am a single-unit sale partner, and nobody seemed to care. In fact, the sales guy made it a point to talk about his larger customers with million-dollar accounts."

In planning this RAMpage item, I set out to give HP a chance to explain why resellers could expect Angelini's account to be an exception to the rule and why selling HP could be a value-add alternative to white boxes. But I never even made it to the second part. On so many other occasions when dealing with consumer products and systems, I've been immensely impressed with HP quality and support. And perhaps the same experience applies to volume resellers. But I'm guessing that Angelini is not the only small consultant to face such anonymous disregard from would-be OEM partners.

This is an increasingly important issue as shrinking hardware margins increasingly force resellers toward outsourcing alternatives such as major OEM builders. As such, this is an area we'd like to devote more coverage to in RAM. Have you had experience like Angelini's? Or have you found that the OEMs really are a saving grace for small, struggling VARs? Please write to editor@reselleradvocate.com and let us know.

Frank Koelsch, executive vice president of Info-Tech Research Group, says he was surprised to see the results of his study. After polling 1,400 IT managers and CIO is SMB corporations, his group found that 48% were not interested in Linux, 15 % were not sure about Linux, and only 10% plan to evaluate Linux.

The Info-Tech report is now one of five studies from 2005 alone sitting on Microsoft's "Get the Facts on Windows and Linux" site (www.microsoft.com/getthefacts) trumpeting the ROI and TCO advantages of Windows over its open source rival in certain market segments. One difference in the Info-Tech report is that it was not commissioned by Microsoft, but that firestorm, which erupted following last year's revelation that a similar Gartner study was funded by Microsoft, has largely subsided. There are now sufficient reports both on and off the Redmond dole that agree with Info-Tech's findings.

What confused me about the Info-Tech report was this page: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html. Look inside the numbers and you'll see that over two-thirds of all Web servers run the Linux-based Apache server, with Windows trailing distantly at just over 20 percent. Given that, how could Windows be the clear choice over Linux? Did Linux only excel with Web servers?

"Linux is certainly experiencing significant growth overall," says Koelsch. "A lot of the large shops, enterprises, have been running UNIX and Linux and mixed operating system environments. They have the staff to support that. But smaller and mid-sized businesses are realizing that Linux isn't free, that there are support costs associated with it and you need to staff up and train to support those issues. What the numbers don't show is that, especially with small shops, they may not be running their own servers. They may hire someone to run servers for them. So if you're using a provider to run your Web services on, your shop may not be running Linux, but your service provider is. So that figure that two-thirds of Web servers run Linux could be correct."

Thus the riddle is solved. The upshot of these studies is that for SMBs buying servers, it is generally more cost effective to run a Windows-only operation than to run with multiple platforms—and what SMB doesn't run Windows on at least a large percentage of its machines? If you sell to service providers, by all means go with Linux. The numbers don't lie. But as IT managers come to you for advice on platforms, rest assured that the Get the Facts reports, while they may seem biased and veiled, are accurate within the limits of their scope. The cost of additional staff to support a multi-OS operation usually exceeds the total outlay to go Windows-only. At least for now. Companies such as Novell, with its SUSE Linux acquisition, may change that with their mix of highly simplified operation and administration combined with the resources and determination to push deep into the system builder channel. But we'll have more on that soon enough.