By Eric Onstad
AMSTERDAM, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Motorola Inc <MOT.N> said it
has orders for the first million units of a new multimedia
set-top launched on Saturday and sees huge additional demand.
"It's bigger than that (in the first year), but I can say
where we're going to ship the first million units," Jim
Reinhart, general manager of Motorola's Media Processing and
Platforms division, said in an interview.
"Our biggest challenge in 1999 is ramping manufacturing. The
demand is there to consume virtually anything we're capable of
fielding," he told Reuters at the International Broadcasting
Convention, where the set-top was unveiled.
Motorola said its "Blackbird" technology combines for the
first time in one device a vast array of applications from
Internet browsing and 3D gaming to digital video and audio.
Since the same hardware is used, a switch between video
conferencing, for example, and electronic commerce is virtually
instantaneous.
"We're capable of watching video from a broadband network,
from cable, or from a satellite, or from a DVD disc. If you'd
rather play a game, we turn the same engines into game playing
engines, and will outplay the latest, greatest game console,"
Reinhart said.
Development and start-up costs for Blackbird were in the
tens of millions of dollars, he added.
The first Blackbird technology would be seen in hotels,
offering movies on demand, Internet browsing and other
applications. Home consumer versions will be marketed in the
first quarter of next year retailing at between $300 and $700,
Reinhart said.
He declined to give details, saying Motorola would be making
further announcements in coming months on partners who will
provide services and the finished set-boxes.
Motorola is manufacturing set-top boxes under private
labels, but also offering either the key components including
the motherboard, or detailed plans to firms who wish to
incorporate the technology in their own products.
"Ifyou'd like to develop your own propriatary version of
this standard architecture, we provide several hundred pages of
documentation, everything you need to develop your product in a
matter of months," Reinhart said.
"Whether you're a multi-billion dollar consumer electronics
manufacturer or a you're a little start-up with a gleam in your
eye, we have a model," he added.
An entrepreneur can buy Motorola's Blackbird development kit
for $2,500 and move quickly to put a product on the market since
Motorola has already negotiated rights for a range of
third-party licences, from Internet browsers to Dolby audio.
"Our fundamental goal is to lower the barriers to entry to
video enertainment and video communication," Reinhart said.
Many other firms are developing competing set-boxes, but
Motorola regards its main competitors those who are battling to
establish other multimedia standards.
The Blackbird design breaks ground due to its flexibility
and openness, in contrast to technology by other sector giants
Microsoft <MSFT.O> and Intel <INTC.O>, Reinhart said.
"Microsoft does not want hundreds of companies going off and
developing propriatary services that don't need Microsoft
software," he said.
"But they're at least a year behind if not more. Windows CE
for example, theoretically will have all the capabilities to do
what we're doing, but they don't exist yet," Reinhart added.
Microsoft's current Web TV service requires a special $200
set-top box, allowing viewers to surf the Internet over their TV
screen, send electronic mail and shop. It does not have the
additional applications Blackbird offers, Reinhart said.
Intel initially embraced PCTV -- linking the Internet, text
data, video and real-time television -- but at $4,000-$5,000 a
unit, it has not proved popular, he said.
Since Intel's acquisition of Digital Equipment Corp, the
firm has focused its multimedia strategy on the StrongARM
processor, a chip used in hand-held devices andset-top boxes.
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