Apple have a good product with ATV. However, their focus has been almost exclusively based on the U.S. market. As a result the European buyer of an Apple TV gets a pretty poor product feature wise by comparison. I used to use my ATV quite a bit at one time, now it rarely gets switched on. As an example, there are none of the UK on demand catch up TV services, yet you can get these on a host of other products e.g. Xbox, Play Station, PVR's DVDR's Roku etc. etc.
I believe it's as similar story on mainland Europe. MS often get criticised for being late to the party. Apple were however at this party but then decided to leave early, opening the door to everyone else.