Another Box Bites the Dust
Christopher Carter
Did anyone else see this coming? I just read that Akimbo, the manufacturer of the Akimbo set top box, and video service provider to said box, has laid off all but a handfull of staff in the hopes of selling their platform and/or technology to recoup a portion of the estimated $47M (I've also read the total is $56M) investors have given to this enterprise. Has an independent service that requires a consumer to purchase a box to download and view videos been successful? Does anyone remember Moviebeam, another venture that closed $50M+ in money only for the assets to be sold for approximately $10M and the service shuttered, and now those same assets are back on the block for less than $5M? I offer the following for the next entrepreneur who thinks they can build a new box that consumers will purchase to dowload and view video content:
1. Consumers do not want another box to connect to the myriad of boxes they already have in their entertainment centers;
2. Consumers will not be interested in a service that has limited offerings and no recent titles. Ask Apple about their foray into this space with a limited suite of content;
3. If you think you need a set top box to demonstrate a slick new User Inteface that will transform how consumers interact with cable content and other digital media, think again. Your solution is a software platform that will end up in a Cable STB, if you can convince the cable operators to use your platform, and that will take several years of discussion and testing. Longer with CE companies. I offer Moxi's Digeo platform, Ucentric (now owned by Motorola) and even Hillcrest Lab's "Loop" as evidence.
I am still waiting for the day when the HDTV has the components inside that permit navigation of web sites to view, select, download and play any video content from any web site. If Apple can condense the components to operate an iMac into the back of a monitor, surely the CE companies can do the same with an HDTV set. I understand some models were displayed at the CE Show in January. On the content side, all of the broadcast networks offer their programming for FREE on several web sites, so the content is available. Just waiting for the CE companies to catch up, as usual. It still astounds me that it took Sony so long to link video content to its Playstation device.