Many loyal WebGuide users have commented that Microsoft should hire me to do Media Center development.

Apparently, someone in Redmond was listening.

I'm excited to announce that I recently finalized a business deal with Microsoft to make WebGuide available to users for free and to become a member of the Media Center team.  I'm joining an extremely talented group and 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.

Since I will be busy doing that, I won't be busy creating new features for WebGuide.  I will continue to monitor the Forums, make comments and provide updates for significant bugs.  One of the best parts of creating WebGuide, from my perspective, has been hearing directly from enthusiastic users about what they really want from the app.  I still want to hear this and am now in a better position to share these thoughts with the powers that be.

For those of you who feel I've sold out, given in to "the man" or crossed over to the dark side, you don't need to send me a nasty email.  I hear yah.  Go play a round of Halo to get it out of your system.  At the end of the day, my passion is for developing cool software, and this is an opportunity to do just that.  I'd be a fool not to take advantage of it.

Thank you for making WebGuide what it is and for keeping me excited and challenged for the past few years.  I look forward to maintaining that relationship.

Doug Berrett