If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

In classic Microsoft-fashion, the company is taking yet another stab at solving the PC-to-TV problem (the “last100 feet”), with the introduction of its Extenders for Windows Media platform. This time round, Microsoft’s partners include Cisco Systems’ Linksys division, D-Link and Niveus Media, each of which will bring to market devices “in a variety of innovative form factors and price points”, capable of streaming photos, music, video and live television from a PC running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate to a wide-screen TV.

Microsoft is re-entering a crowded market for “media extenders” which is already littered with its own previous failures along with those of its partners, and competing products such as the fledgling AppleTV, DivX’s newly announced “connected” platform, and Sony’s PlayStation 3. In addition, Microsoft already makes one of the more successful “extenders”, in the company’s XBox 360.

On September 3rd, Microsoft will celebrate the five year anniversary of Windows Media Center, arguably one of the company’s more successful products. Windows XP Media Center Edition was released to manufacturers in the United States and Canada in 2002, and Microsoft has followed up with a number of releases since then, most recently as part of Windows Vista. The software is at the core of Microsoft’s digital media strategy and looks to have a bright future ahead. In this post we’ll take a look at what Windows Media Center is, the levels of success it has achieved thus far, and finally we’ll touch on where Microsoft might take the product in the next few years.