Poor Microsoft, strained to the limit

I don’t really know what to make of the announcement that Microsoft will stop developing Windows Media Player for the Mac. On one hand, I truly hate this software — the player itself is wonky and crappy and hasn’t been updated since 2003. WMV format is a maddening experience to watch, streams poorly, and has so few keyframes that one can fast forward and then never get the video back again. There is also plenty of content out there that I still can’t watch, probably because of the old version of the player and the fact that the DRM doesn’t work on a Mac.
On the other hand, since Microsoft represents such a monopoly, the loss of Windows Media on Mac means that a huge amount of content will be unavailable to Mac users, even though Microsoft has licensed a WMV player from a third party. It has the same problems as the MS software, and how often will it be updated?
Hey, Windows users: QuickTime is free, and it is cross-platform. Just a tip.
Here’s the hilarious kicker: Microsoft claims that the reason they’ve dropped development is because — ready for this? — they need to focus their efforts on getting Windows Vista out. Tim Harader, a senior business development manager says, “We’ve been so focused on Vista and we’ve been so focused on creating an incredible media experience on the PC, we just did not have the resources to do a good job on (the Mac version).”
As I said, the software hasn’t been updated in almost 3 years. And Windows Vista is years late. I think that maybe Microsoft, one of the behemoths of the computer industry, needs to take a look at its “resources.”