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The product and service were developed by WebTV Networks, Inc., a company which was purchased by Microsoft Corporation and absorbed into MSN (the Microsoft Network). While most Thin Client s developed in the mid-1990s were positioned as diskless workstations for corporate Intranet s, WebTV was positioned as a consumer device for web access. EARLY HISTORY WebTV Networks, Inc was incorporated on June 30, , Bruce Leak and Phil Goldman . Primary design criteria were ease of use and low cost. The original device retailed for $350 at a time when inexpensive home computers were $1000. WebTV Networks was purchased by Microsoft for $425 million USD in April 1997 , before the company was even two years old. The founders and their early employees were creative and witty. Before incorporation, the company referred to itself as Artemis Research {Link without Title} to disguise the nature of their business; they explained that they were doing research in named Bowser wandered the offices, and his name was lifted for the browser itself. WebTV Networks conserved their financial and managerial resources by providing licensed consumer electronics manufacturers with a reference design, allowing them to manufacture and market the client. Their profits were to come from operating the online service. They paid a bounty to manufacturers for each new subscriber, allowing the manufacturers to sell the clients at a lower price. The monthly subscription fee for the original Classic models was $19.99, and for the Plus model was $24.99, which included dial-up access as well as the WebTV support. Users providing their own dialup access - necessary in areas where WebTV's leased network had no dialup nodes - were charged $10.00 less. When the New Classic with increased memory was released, the subscription fee for that model was set at $21.95. After the online service was absorbed into that of MSN, the company offered free access to users with the dialup models of the client to MSN subscribers. Those using the MSNTV2 model were offered the online service for $21.95 including dialup access, or $9.95 for those who provided their own access through dialup or broadband; free access to subscribers of MSN's PC-oriented services was not offered. THE WEBTV CLIENT Since the device was a dedicated web browser appliance, the cost of licensing an Operating System could be avoided. The box featured such cutting-edge technology as a 64-bit RISC CPU chip, and a Smart-card reader, neither of which ever caught on in the U.S. The Web Browser was compatible with both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer and the box featured 2 MB of RAM – as much as many PCs. At a time when 28.8 kbit/s modems were common, the WebTV had a 33.6 kbit/s modem, and used a caching firewall for acceleration &ndash a feature that most dialup ISPs didn't offer, even as an extra-cost option, until years later. As a thin client, there was no need for a Hard Drive , but by putting the browser in Non-volatile Memory , upgrades could be downloaded from a WebTV server. The WebTV units were innovative in another way: they used a 64-bit RISC chip, instead of a 32-bit version of a 30-year-old CISC chip, as was commonly used in computers. Since all software was downloaded from WebTV servers anyway, there was no need to support legacy applications. This decision eventually caused problems, as users demanded support for proprietary file formats like that of RealAudio . Each time Real Networks released a new version - almost a yearly event, as Real Networks sought to sell new licenses to existing licensees - WNI had to negotiate for source code, and then port it to the WebTV architecture. The file format would become available to WebTV users about the same time it became obsolete. When Microsoft released the MSNTV2 model, they adopted standard PC architecture, permitting the use of Windows CE software with few changes. A second model, the "Plus", was introduced a year later. This model featured a tuner to allow watching television in a PIP (Picture-In-Picture) window while waiting for pages to arrive, allowed one to capture video stills from video camera, VCR or broadcast television as a JPG , and included a video tuner that allowed one to schedule a VCR in a TiVOesque manner. The Plus also included a 56k modem. In order to accommodate large nightly downloads of television schedules, a hard drive was included in the original Plus; as chip prices fell faster than hard drive prices, later versions of the Plus used an M-systems DiskOnChip flashrom chip instead. It also supported ATVEF , a technology that allowed users to download special script-laden pages to interact with television shows. WebTV produced reference designs of models incorporating a disk-based personal video recorder and a satellite tuner for EchoStar DISH Network and for Hughes DirecTV . Disagreements between Microsoft and the satellite televisions companies led to a lack of support, and the models failed. As an ease-of-use design consideration, WebTV early decided to reformat pages rather than have users doing sideways scrolling. As garden-variety PCs evolved from VGA resolution of 640x480 to SVGA resolution of 800x600, reformatting to fit the 560-pixel width of a television screen became less satisfactory. The WebTV browser also translated HTML frames as tables in order to avoid the need for a mouse. To address these problems, the engineers at WNI developed the MSN Companion, which was another easy-to-use thin client which used an SVGA monitor and mouse. Both Compaq and E-Machines However, being substantially more expensive than WebTV (which at this point was typically $50 after rebate) and lacking many features that PC users and WebTV users found standard, the Companion never found a customer base. MSN REBRANDING In 2001, Microsoft's MSN unit took over WebTV's subscribers, and contracts with Philips and Sony were terminated in favor of RCA being the sole manufacturer of units. Heavy promotion of WebTV ended, and the high Churn Rate and support costs associated with new subscribers dropped, allowing the newly-rebranded MSNTV to achieve profitability, despite a lower subscriber census. At its peak, there were more than 1 million subscribers. In recent years, the number of consumers using dialup access has dropped and as the Classic and Plus clients were restricted to dialup access, their subscriber count began to drop. In late 2004, Microsoft introduced MSNTV2. Like the MSN Companion, the "Deuce" is capable of broadband access, and allows the use of a mouse, but it uses the television as an output device, eliminating the need for a computer desk in crowded homes. It has vastly improved streaming media capabilities, and unlike the MSIE/4 browser in the MSNTV, has an MSIE/6 browser that is capable of surfing most websites. MSNTV2 uses a separate online service from MSNTV. Microsoft appears to be devoting substantial resources to making the TV2 successful. In February 2006, a hardware/Linux hacker managed to analyse the proprietary bios and published a guide describing how to install the Linux operating system to the MSNTV2 player. Since then, the price of used MSNTV2 devices in auction sites skyrocketed. WEBTV/MSNTV CLIENT HARDWARE SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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