John, What will be the effect on Cube of the Intel-Nokia settop pact?
Intel, Nokia in set-top box pact
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news), the world's largest computer chip maker, said it is teaming up with mobile phone giant Nokia Group to jointly develop set-top boxes that integrates the Internet for the European digital TV market.
The companies plan to make their announcement on Tuesday at the Telecom 99 industry trade show in Geneva.
The set-top boxes and software will integrate the Internet with digital television programming. The companies said that product development is underway and they expect to have the first products introduced in the second half of 2000.
The companies hope to create more personalized television viewing, melding data and services available on the Internet.
``It's about developing a personalized television experience and making it interactive to the level a consumer wants it to be,' said Ganesh Moorthy, vice president of marketing at Intel's home products group. ``You get the stuff you are interested in.'
Moorthy said some examples include current stock prices of from a personalized portfolio, sports scores of favorite sports teams, and weather, all scrolling across the TV at the same time a television program is on. Television watchers could also look up more statistics or information on a team or a player, via the Internet, at the same time as watching a game.
Intel said it will provide the processors, which will be Intel architecture-based chips such as its Celeron or Pentium family, software and some broadcast technology. Nokia of Finland also develops digital television products.
The companies said they plan to use the upstart Linux operating system for the set-top boxes, running the Mozilla Internet browser software. Both Linux and Mozilla are developed by the open source community of software developers and are free over the Internet.
The move is the latest by Intel in the set-top box arena. In June, Intel announced a pact with Hughes Electronics Corp. (NYSE:GMH - news) to develop digital satellite set-top boxes. The first product will be America Online Inc.'s (NYSE:AOL - news) TV satellite receiver which will support AOL TV.
Analysts said that the two companies may face some challenges ahead because they have selected technical specifications that are not yet widely used in Europe.
Intel and Nokia said they plan to develop their products around the ATVEF (Advanced Television Video Enhancement Forum) specification that uses Internet protocols so that broadcasters can add data to a video stream.
``Over 7 million households in Europe have interactive TV, due to some recent growth in France and the U.K., and the vast majority is not based on ATVEF,' said Kevin Hause, an analyst with International Data Corp. ``There is no one standard, there are a couple...There is a long way to go.'
But Hause also pointed out that he believed the focus by Intel and Nokia on integrating personalized data from the Web into television viewing is the right approach. ``It's not about Web pages on your TV,' Hause said. ``It's about focused applications and information.'
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