Archive for the ‘Ecosystem’ Category

TV Everywhere a great first step
Monday, August 16th, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

Keyhole

This TV Everywhere that’s popping up, well, everywhere, is a great idea. At least I think so, but then I’m a frequent flier, the windshield warrior, as they say. I spend more time in hotels, airports and, sad but true, restaurants dining alone where a good shot of television would be just the thing the boredom doctor ordered.

For me, TV Everywhere would go everywhere. But, as I say, I’m not a normal person when it comes to being in too many places at too many times. The average American cable subscriber—or telco subscriber, to be fair, those guys are into this as well—doesn’t get around as much. While TV Everywhere and the fun of being connected is no doubt an interesting novelty, it’s not up there with a phone number that follows you or a high-speed Internet connection that continues to work when you leave your modem behind.

That’s what got me thinking about the next phase of TV Everywhere. I call it Everything Everywhere—I know, I’m pushing it, the service providers are just rolling out TV Everywhere but what the hee haw, I’m allowed.

Anyway, Everything Everywhere would be just that; everything a cable subscriber could want that the cable operator has (and that’s basically everything these days) all part of a bundled package that can be carried to the car, the hotel, the beach, the park and everywhere but the movie theater where really, you should be watching the movie not looking at Everything Everywhere.

The concept is simple because it’s based on the idea that everything can be stored in the cloud. Access is relatively simple, too. You sign up for cable service and you get the option of Everything Everywhere. The details, of course, have to be worked out, but that’s for the detail people; I’m thinking big here, I’m taking things to the limit, I’m… OK, I’m dreaming of a time in the future, hopefully the near future, when connectivity will be everywhere and the keys will be in the hands of the subscriber who’s bought the lock from his cable operator.

Everything Everywhere. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

A Box is Just a Box … Unless it’s Something Else
Monday, August 2nd, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

Reaching for a Tablet

Those who know me or who think they know me because they’ve been following this space know that I’m not a fan of boxes. My theory is, if there’s already a box that does the job, then you don’t need a second box to do it as well. If you have a set-top box that works the TV or the satellite or the telco video system, that’s enough. You don’t need another one to do another application; make the first one do the job or, better yet, outsource the job to the cloud.

A box, after all, is just a box. And more often than not you don’t need another one.

Maintaining a strict stance on any subject, however, runs the risk of boxing a person in so I’ve always said that there might be room for another box under certain conditions. Those conditions have been met by a box being developed in India that will go for $35 — a tablet, to be exact, but that doesn’t fit well with the train of this thought. This is no ordinary box (tablet); it’s a cloud-connected computer that can bring the wonders of the Internet to the masses without the need for a bigger box full of applications no one needs.

The idea is genius. It’s being promoted by the Indian government, which hopes to eventually bring the price down to $10, as a way to get broadband connectivity and online learning into the hands of everyone. Without advertising it, the new tablet cuts all the corners. It’ll be Linux-based with touch screen, no hard drive, storage based on memory cards and a solar cell option to charge it up.

What charges me up is the thought of empowering more people to connect to the vast amounts of information in the cloud. Gone are the days of having to purchase a library of CDs that contain your electronic encyclopedia (sorry Encarta, nothing personal). It is, in short, a box with a plan. So, in this case, I’ll make an exception to my rule. I don’t like boxes—unless those boxes do something that needs to be done. Bringing Internet to the masses at a reasonable price and making the best use of the cloud is something that needs to be done.

Next technology should be ‘people everywhere’
Thursday, July 15th, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

Smart Phone on Steriods

The Internet’s ability to untether people has really changed the whole dynamic around what is entertainment and what is necessary and what is not.

While the TV Everywhere initiative pushes video entertainment out of the living room and into roving devices like laptops, PCs and mobile phones, it expands the video entertainment experience. To take it one step further, with what I’ll call People Everywhere, today’s technology, with slight modifications, can push content out to users everywhere and at the same time pull user information that can be used later.

The idea behind People Everywhere is to place existing technology—or stuff yet to be developed—into a device that is carried everywhere. While that sounds like a smartphone, to paraphrase Brian Roberts, it should be a smartphone on steroids. This always-on device would not only keep track of the user’s location but would store that information in a cloud-based file for later retrieval. If the user went to the local mall, the device would know what store and even what department; a sports store and the tennis department, for instance.

On the surface this whole thing does sound somewhat intrusive and creepy. What makes People Everywhere a winning concept is that the user can take that same device and control how information retrieved during the day is presented in its most useful fashion all accessed from a device that might have its own screen but also might, through the wonders of technology, transform into a remote control or mouse that connects to yet another screen. Turn on the TV at home or in the hotel and get an ad not for Slazenger golf balls but rather for Slazenger tennis equipment because you’d been searching the tennis department. Turn on the PC and find not an annoying ribbon for the local car dealer but a more pleasing visage of the latest line of Izod tennis shorts.

People Everywhere is a concept that’s a ways out—but it’s not science fiction. People like Intel are working feverishly on smart remote controls that recognize and sense consumers; cable operators are TV Everywhere outside the normal home entertainment center; every mobile phone knows where you are; and motion detection is a video game must. Put them all together in one small package, connected, of course, to the cloud and you have People Everywhere; an idea waiting to be born.

Jobs Has the Right Idea, but He’s Caught in a Box
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

Steve Jobs

Few people out there would say Steve Jobs isn’t a smart guy—excepting maybe Bill Gates, but then that’s more personal than professional. After all, the man brought the Avis (we try harder) of computers back and made it what Wall Street is now calling the most valuable technology company in the world. For Apple, under Jobs, it’s been all about i, not we: iPhone, iPad, hit the i-way Microsoft!

So I was a little more than surprised to hear this industry visionary taking such a limited view of the cable industry. His contention is not totally inaccurate. Motorola and Cisco historically have had the lion’s share of the set-top box market, and consumers have demonstrated an acceptance of cable’s set-top box business model, limiting the opportunities for additional boxes to find their way into home entertainment configurations.

Where I think Jobs is wrong is his ultimate conclusion, spoken at All Things Digital, that the cable box model “pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation.” “The only way that’s ever going to change is if you really go back to square one, tear up the set top box, redesign it from scratch with a consistent UI across all these different functions and get it to consumers in a way that they’re willing to pay for it. And right now there’s no way to do that,” Jobs said earlier this week.

Perhaps he’s not letting on to Apple’s real strategy—Jobs does have a penchant for pulling rabbits out of hats—but Steve Jobs the technology pioneer doesn’t seem to be thinking out of the box when it comes to conquering—or even playing with—cable television. This stance is even more surprising given Apple’s recent acquisition of Lala and plans to have a completely cloud-based streaming solution for iTunes.

There is a way to innovate the television experience and it doesn’t include a new set-top box, it includes using infrastructure that’s already in place—perhaps including a set-top box that’s already there—and the Internet cloud. All sorts of applications, opportunities and content can reside in that cloud. The trick is not to build a box to receive and contain it; the trick is to build a model that’s amorphous and floats above the box.

Tomorrow’s telecommunications space, including cable, will not be ruled by the device in the home, it will be ruled by the applications that feed the device in the home. That’s why people don’t want another set-top box; the ones they already have do much of what they want. It’s up to the innovators to take the set-tops the rest of the way.

I can understand Steve’s reluctance to pursue a completely cloud-based solution. After all, when it comes down to it, he’s a gadget guy. Love it or not, the iPad is a marvel of technological brilliance that has all other manufacturers scrapping their recent product plans, and going back to the drawing board. It’s not quite as sexy to say, “The device doesn’t really do anything. It’s all in the cloud.”

But first and foremost, Apple’s brand is about the experience, and they can use the cloud to deliver that experience to any device.

Google: If Anyone Can Pull off a New TV Model, They Can
Thursday, May 27th, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

GoogleTV

At first glance, this whole idea of Google TV seems like a ho-hum, here comes somebody else to try to make waves in the cable industry. Stand there in line behind Microsoft and TiVo and Apple and all the others who have come before you with limited or no success.

Sure, the surface concept seems shallow and devoid of content and distribution. Sure, the idea of showing today’s Web content on the Internet has been tried before and the audience has never been there. And sure, there is already a moneymaking machine in charge of television, from the broadcasters to the cable channels to the pay TV channels and it’s tough for anybody to throw a stick into the spokes of that well-oiled organization. And sure, it’s a solution that requires yet another box when content can instead be streamed directly from the cloud.

Beneath the surface, though, are a few lingering thoughts: This is Google, this is the age of partnerships, and the very mention of Google TV seems to have been enough to wake Apple TV from its slumber. So maybe there’s something there after all.

Content? Yeah what’s out there now is weak but when you have a pipe the size of Google’s and a potential audience used to tapping the search engine for anything from a word definition to a map to a satellite picture, content providers won’t be aloof. In fact, it seems pretty apparent that content shouldn’t be a problem for Google just as it’s not a problem for satellite and telco providers. Cable channels may come from and go to cable, but their main allegiance is to the almighty dollar and if Google can find a way to monetize its service, there will be multiple dollars to salute.

The likelihood is that Google, with an open platform and an army of eager apps developers will be able to come up with some sort of monetization formula that will draw the likes of broadcasters, cable channels and even existing online content providers like Hulu into the Google TV fold. So figure content is not a problem.

Distribution might be a bigger hurdle. Google has struck a deal with Best Buy so in the worst of circumstances it could have a Google-equipped set-top box or some other device for sale at your local big box store. It’s got a partnership with Sony so it could be included in a variety of Sony televisions. But to really get out there, Google needs to cut a deal with a cable or satellite box maker—Motorola, Cisco and quite possibly Pace—and they have to have the blessing of the service provider to incorporate Google. At that point, perhaps, it becomes Google TV channel, one multifaceted point where Google presents its apps and content and presence amid all the other cable selections. It’s not necessarily what the big boys in the Silicon Valley want, but it would be a workable idea in a cable/satellite dominated space.

Google TV surely looks like another ho-hum play in the video entertainment space until you take that second glance. At that point it looks like either a threat or a new avenue for cable. My guess is it will be a new avenue in an increasingly interactive cable space.

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