Will the Microsoft Ruling Affect Digital Signage Operators?

September 17th, 2007 Daniel Parisien

Windows Media Player, the omnipresent playback engine used by most digital signage applications, may no longer be included in the Windows OS by default.

A top European Union court has rejected Microsoft’s appeal of the 2004 ruling by the European Commission which included, among other things, the requirement to stop “bundling” Windows Media Player with the Windows Operating System.

This may affect several digital signage software vendors directly, since Windows Media Player is the playback engine behind a majority of the digital signage software packages available today. You can identify packages which rely on Windows Media Player by two distinguishing properties:

1. They do not support Linux (Windows Media Player does not run on Linux).

2. They require you to install third party codecs such as DivX, MainConcept or Elecard/Moonlight (Windows Media Player comes with MPEG-1 and WMV playback only).

Depending on how Microsoft complies with the court’s decision, this development may force some vendors to adapt quickly or risk leaving their customers with a bigger bill per playback device or worse, no upgrade path.

Entry Filed under: The Big Picture, Digital Signage Evolution, Toys and Technologies, Uncategorized