Portable Media Centers available on Amazon

The first Windows Mobile based Portable Media Centres are now available to preorder on Amazon.com, good news for Microsoft who have been waiting to get into the portable media market for some time now.

The first devices to be shipped will be the Creative Zen Portable Media Center and the Samsung Yepp YH-999. No release date is currently given on Amazon, just the statement that the items will be shipped when they arrive. Microsoft state that the Creative device will be available in late August and the Samsung in late September.

Not a great deal of competition for these devices exists in the marketplace at the moment. Archos are among the only manufacturers in the world to offer a portable media player, although none of their AV products is based on the Windows Mobile platform.

How popular the new devices will be is currently unknown for although the portable audio market is highly lucrative for manufacturers such as Apple, portable video is an entirely different offering, it not being something you can just plug into and listen to. Microsoft clearly think that the market exists and is just waiting to be tapped into, how keen the rest of the world will be is something we'll be keeping an eye on. We'll keep you posted.