A suggestion for J Allard as Chief Experience Officer

From Mary-Jo Foley’s blog……

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1463

So, since Windows 7 is in development as MS has said, now is the time to offer ideas/suggestions.

Hi J.... I realize of course that he'll never see this message but I hope perhaps the concept reaches him at some point.  If you really want to make a compelling argument for Win7 and secure dominance of the MS platform against competitors, here's a suggestion.

Provide a seamless and unified experience with all Microsoft's primary devices.  What devices am I referring to?  Win7 (PC), Xbox 360, and the Zune.  What do I mean by this?  I mean that my Windows 7 PC (whether it be my Home Server (which should be a Win7 SKU if you ask me) my primary desktop, my laptop, etc) will talk to my Xbox 360 over the network in ways never before seen.  For example, any codecs I have installed on my Win7 Media Center are 'offered' to the Xbox 360 (through a framework that MS designs) so I can play (inside of Media Center, or in the dashboard) any of my video files across any of my devices.  This same framework would 'offer' the codecs to my other Win7 PCs as well, as well as my Zune.  This way I only have to install the codecs on a single machine, once.  (Since MS controls the OS for all these devices this shouldn’t be that difficult a feat with codecs designed to work in the new framework.)  All my media, accessible from any of my devices, over the network.  Seems like a simple enough concept.  I know, there are quite a bit of logistics to work out but honestly?  Not really that much.  Create this framework and make it an open source project so that it is adopted quickly and easily.  (I'm typically against giving away code but since this is a project would want the entire community to be a part of it’s necessary.)  Honestly, how incredible would this simple, brand new compelling feature be?  You would have everyone who does any kind of media or owns any of the other devices upgrading to Win7 en mass.

Next, as part of Win7 Media Center, offer the Media Center Server option.  Even include it as part of the Home Server SKU (which I think it should be.)  This way I have my primary media server, and then I can watch TV shows or even live TV via my PCs as well as my Xbox 360's and even a simple feed transport on my Zune via wifi.  My point is that each of these devices/skus (Vista Premium, Home Server, Xbox 360 (dashboard and extender), Zune), all have this completely different (and none of them feature complete) interfaces that require me to switch from one to another to another to get everything I want.  It's insane.  Why????  Honestly, WHY??  If you could provide a completely unified front-end (which, I hate to admit Apple is quite well at doing) you can provide a huge reason for Win7 and secure Microsoft's OS dominance.  Trust me, I have a ton more ideas/concepts for this 'unified experience' but I don't want this to be 10 pages long.

Just a thought.

One additional note.  Instead of the insane SKU’s that really are irrelevant, let’s have Win7 SKUs that do have a purpose.  Here are my proposed Win7 SKUs - (Windows 7 Home (includes standard Media Center, essentially Home Premium), Windows 7 Home Server (This includes all Home Server options plus some additional features such as Folder Redirection and other enterprise tools, and this is the SKU that contains Media Center Server), Windows 7 Business, Windows 7 Ultimate (that has all features of every SKU.)

So, what do you think?  What features or concepts would you like in Win7?  Now’s the time to be heard while development is still happening.  Once the beta starts, I doubt they’ll listen to any feature requests.