WebTV, in its current form, is gone in two years....................
techweb.com
WebTV May Vanish In Two Years
(09/18/98; 3:07 p.m. ET)
By Andrew Craig, TechWeb
Microsoft's WebTV set-top box may vanish within two years, as consumers turn to lower-priced PCs and digital-television receivers to access the Internet at home, according to analysts.
But while even Microsoft is rumored to be questioning the future of the WebTV Internet-access device, analysts said Friday if the product doesn't survive on its own, the technology inside the box may have a role elsewhere.
"The set-top box on its own really has no future," said Paul O'Donovan, consumer applications analyst at Dataquest, in Egham, Surrey in the United Kingdom. "The stand-alone set-top box will just disappear. They will probably disappear in the next 18 months to two years as digital television arrives."
The idea of WebTV and its WebTV Networks intranet service could survive, but not in the form of a separate Web browser on TV, said O'Donovan. "But in the long term, the functionality will appear within the TV or through digital set-top boxes," he said.
WebTV as a separate box will struggle because it has a relatively small market, according to Adam Daum, senior analyst at researcher Inteco in Woking, England. This could make Microsoft question the product's future, he said.
"Microsoft has a history of announcing bold technology strategies and being perfectly prepared to drop them if they don't work," Daum said.
But Microsoft is prepared to buy a company for the technology involved rather than just the end product, he said. "They may take the technology of WebTV and put it in other devices," he said.
Digital television will launch around the world over the coming months. Some broadcasters and set-top box manufacturers are planning to include Internet access alongside high-quality broadcasting and electronic program guides.
In the United Kingdom, cable-TV subscribers will be offered a combined digital TV and Internet-access service from cable operator Cable & Wireless Communications. Digital TV set-top boxes being manufactured by British company Pace Micro Technologies will incorporate Cisco's Internet-access technology, under a deal announced earlier this month. Pace also manufactures WebTV boxes in Europe under a license from Microsoft.
WebTV has achieved limited success in North America and is only just making its way into Western Europe. The problem has been finding what sort of person wants to buy a TV-Internet access device, said O'Donovan.
"WebTV hasn't been too successful because they are offering the box to people who are neither PC- nor electronic device-literate, and only reaching a small market," he said.
The over-45 age group has proven to be one of WebTV's more successful markets, said Inteco's Daum. "The latest info is that it is finding a market among over 45s, driven partly by kids giving the devices to their parents so they can keep in touch with them by e-mail," he said.
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