Re: RE: Re: UKNM: The next stage in the game - ?????

[Jon Watts]

Afternoon all.


Clay wrote:


	> I think we should differentiate between Open, the development

	> platform (a hideously expensive proprietory setup similarish to

	> Macromedia Director, and used across Europe by a large number of

	> satellite and cable companies), 


	I thought that Open *wasn't* in use in a large number of places. Can

	you point me to anything that lists the places where its currently in

	use? 


I think there's a fair bit of confusion going on here! OpenTV is the

name of the interactive services system used by BIB to operate the Open

platform. OpenTV's product family includes an operating system for

digital television receivers, a set of authoring tools for developing

applications, software to deliver applications to the digital receiver

and a set of services to complete the interactive television solution.


The Open platform used by BIB has been further developed by Oracle.

Open TV now have over 3,501,000 set-top box units deployed worldwide, as

of its second quarter ended 30th June, with over 933,000 set-top box

units shipped in the UK, Canada, Australia, and Spain. The system is

currently being used by a large number of major satellite pay-TV

platform operators, including TPS in France, EchoStar's DISH Network in

the USA, Stream in Italy, Via Digital in Spain and, of course, BSkyB in

the UK (there's a full list of customers at

http://www.opentv.com/customers/).


Given the rate at which these platforms are growing, OpenTV will have a

vwery substantial installed base for some time.


OpenTV is "proprietary", in the sense that it isn't open source  - so

are all interactive services solutions, including the Liberate

Technologies and Power TV systems used by cable operators - surely all

software is proprietary if it isn't open source? 


Perhaps more importantly, OpenTV is a small-footprint MPEG-centric

solution - it has been designed for use in a broadcast environment and

doesn't make substantial use of 'open' (sorry!) Internet protocols. This

makes it more difficult for content and services developers to leverage

the huge base of knowledge, skills, know-how, content and services that

have been developed for the Internet into the interactive television

space. Whether or not this represents a significant problem remains to

be seen.


	> and Open.... (four dots) the ex-BIB conglomerate who have paid a

	> rather large amount of money to provide the content for the BSkyB

	> interactive offering.


	Why seperate them? If the content is tied to the protocol, they'll

	both be killed off at the same time.


Open is the consumer brand name, BIB is the name of the consortium

operating the platform, in the same way that the Sky channels are owned

and operated by BSkyB, which also operates a distribution platform. Just

to make matters more confusing, BSkyB also has an interactive television

programming arm, which was responsible for the clever stuff wrapped

around the Manchester United - Arsenal match.


	> It'll depend on what can be delivered through the TV as well obviously -

	> If Digital TV can provide a service as self-contained, intuitive and

	> authoritative as the old french Minitel was, then I oculd see a lot of

	> people never using the Internet side of their set-top box, because "I can

	> never find anything I want, its all weird, its too slow, and TV's better".


	If DTV can provide a service as self-contained (e.g. not open),

	intuitive (e.g. designed by fiat instead of experiment) and

	authoratitive (e.g. no place for vox pop), then DTV will go the way of

	Minitel - a good service in the short hauyl, doomed in the long

	haul. If the Minitel model didn't work for the French, why do you

	think its going to work for anyone else?


Digital Television is not going to go the way of Minitel - television is

going to be with us for the foreseeable future. The best analogy for

Open is Teletext, not Minitel. It's not trying to be an open, networked

platform - it's trying to create a sensible, simple and secure

environment using the limited broadcast resources available (i.e.

transponders). For the record, Teletext is extremely successful and much

used! Of course, that's not to say that teletext isn't being forced to

change and evolve as usage of the Internet increases. 


However, the success of the Open interactive services platform (as

distinct from digital television) is very much open (sorry again!) to

question. In particular, it is not clear how price competitive the

platform will be, given that it is dominated by big name branded

retailers who are likely to be unwilling to undercut high street prices


- will consumers purchase lots of CDs through Open when they can get the

same CDs for much less over the Internet? Hmmmm.


One final thought - it's interesting to note that despite its enormous

marketing spend and the transition to free set-top boxes, BSkyB's total

subscriber numbers across its analogue and digital satellite platforms

has actually fallen for the last two successive quarters. In other

words, BSkyB has fewer satellite subscribers today than it did 6 months

ago. In the meantime, cable is still putting on subscribers, and could

overtake satellite within the next year.


Cheers,

Jon Watts

Spectrum Strategy Consultants

Greencoat House

Francis Street

London SW1P 1DH

United Kingdom

Tel: (+44) 171 630 1400

Fax: (+44) 171 630 7011

email:

jon [dot] wattsspectrumsc [dot] co [dot] uk

http://www.spectrumsc.com



********************

UKNM is sponsored by Excite UK, visit us at http://www.excite.co.uk.

Email Khalil Ibrahimi

khalilexcitecorp [dot] com (mailto:khalilexcitecorp [dot] com)

 to advertise on Excite.

********************

Change your UKNM subscription use http://www.chinwag.com/uknm.html