Matsushita Electric Co is the latest company to sign a joint development agreement with Microsoft Corp in the area of PC to TV convergence. Back in April, Microsoft and Sony Corp announced a similar deal (CI No 3,386). That deal marked a compromise on Microsoft’s part, an acknowledgement that it needs to support the use of the television industry’s 1080 interlaced displays as the preferred format for HDTV production and archiving because it is the highest resolution format which is cost effective and currently available. Sony did agree to develop production equipment implementing the PC camp’s preferred 480 progressive scan format in the near future however, and agreed that 1080 progressive equipment was the ultimate goal in the longer term. It wasn’t clear if any such agreement also applied to the Matsushita deal, but the Tokyo-based company, which owns the National, Panasonic and Technics brand name, would be as unlikely to give up and more technical ground to Microsoft than Sony did. The two will collaborate on the development of digital cable advanced set-top boxes. Like Sony, Matsushita’s agreement means it can use Microsoft’s Windows CE operating system for use in some products, though reports have suggested that it won’t be abandoning its various home grown operating systems in the near future. But Matsushita will port CE over to its proprietary AM33 chips which it uses for set-top boxes, digital cameras and digital video disk machines. Matsushita will also begin selling Microsoft subsidiary WebTV Networks Inc’s terminals in Japan later this year. Hitachi Ltd announced a somewhat broader agreement with Microsoft for Windows CE at the beginning of this month (CI No 3,443).
