 Ok,
if you are a frequent reader of the::unwired you know that I'm a big fan and
heavy user of Ascii Express' WebGuide4 and it looks like someone in Redmond is
or was a big fan as well since WebGuide4 is that missing piece of software
Microsoft should put into Windows Vista when it was released. Well, there are
two good news: Doug Berrett, the man behind WebGuide4 just announced that he
recently finalized a business deal with Microsoft to make WebGuide4 available to
users for free. This means, if you own a Windows XP Media Center or Windows
Vista Media Center, you can get it free of charge now to stream and place shift
your live TV, your videos and DVDs as well as view your photos and listen your
music, from virtually any Internet connected PC as well as Internet connected
Windows Mobile device.
 
Furthermore, Doug announced that he's joining Microsoft to become a member of
the Media Center team. Actually he will focus on pushing Media Center into the
high-end custom installation market. The custom installation market is a
terrific incubator for new ideas and technologies that will eventually benefit
the larger Media Center community.
The bad news is, that since he will be busy doing that, he won't be able
creating new features for WebGuide nor continue the current development. He will
continue to monitor the Forums, make comments and provide updates for
significant bugs but we shouldn't expect any feature updates in the near future.
Anyway, as of today, WebGuide4 is pretty robust, definitely worth to give it
a try if you own a Windows Media Center PC since it unwires all your Media
Center content and makes you Windows Mobile device an even better "Portable
Media Center" (incl. live TV streaming).
Congrats Doug, you definitely deserved it and I'm sure you will work hard to
make the Windows Media Center even better, which comes to the benefit for all of
us Windows Media Center users. It was a pleasure to work with you on WebGuide4
and sharing ideas!
Cheers ~ Arne
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