The Brooklyn-based software company Boxee has announced that the latest version of their popular media center software will be the last iteration for Windows, Mac and Ubuntu. Boxee software will be available on Boxee.tv through the end of January according the website.

We believe the future of TV will be driven by devices such as the Boxee Box, Connected TVs / Blu-Rays and 2nd screen devices such as tablets and phones, the Boxee team wrote in a recent blog post. While there are still many users who have computers connected to their TVs, we believe this use case is likely to decline as users find better alternatives. People will continue to watch a lot of video on their computer, but it is more likely to be a laptop than a home-theater PC and probably through a browser rather than downloaded software.

The blog post goes on to thank all of the fans that have supported Boxee iterations on their computers. ...Thank you for all your support-- we would not be where we are today without you. But we can't stay here, the post says. The Boxee team hopes that everyone will continue to enjoy version 1.5 of Boxee, and says, ...maybe when you are ready to retire that good ol' HTPC/Mac Mini you will decide to get a Boxee Box.

The final suggestion that Boxee makes in their heartfelt blogpost--that their loyal fans buy the Boxee Box--makes it apparent that Boxee is trying to compete directly with Roku and other all-in-one media center services. It's an interesting progression for a company that developed a port of XBMC, the acronym for the Xbox Media Center, an open-source application that turned modded consoles of the original Xbox into media centers or home theater PCs (HTPC) as they're often referred to.

Software