Coming This Fall: Goodbye Pika, Hello MCX
Posted Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:05:12 EDT by Michael Wolf
It looks like we may finally be getting some answers to where those missing Pika devices are. For those you who aren't familar with the term, Pika is the v2 of Microsoft's Media Center Extenders, which they played up big at WinHEC 2006. The devices, which are standardized on Sigma's 8622 part, look like they're finally getting close to the market. I have heard that there are three partners in the "network/IT" space that will be coming out with gen-2 Media Center Extenders this fall, and beyond that we will likely see some bigger consumer electronics brands in spring of 2008. This basically means we'll probably see some vendors in the Linksys/D-Link/Netgear space with MCX devices first, possibly HP, and then possibly someone (I would guess Toshiba as a likely candidate) announced at CES.
The company is also looking to bring in other silicon partners beyond Sigma, so I would expect other decoder/media processor guys like Broadcom to get into the game.
So finally some answers to the question of where is Pika. Only now, as you'll probably see by some positioning by Microsoft, they are definitely looking to end-of-life the term Pika (not a surprise, it's their typical approach to code-names as products get close to market), and push the Media Center Extender term exclusively as we move into launch phase this fall.