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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates
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To: Mike Buckley who wrote (18020)2/15/2000 8:00:00 AM
From: Mike Buckley  Read Replies (1) of 54805
 
Defining Moments

About six months ago we enjoyed one of the finest periods in the folder when there was a terrific discussion of defining moments and their context relative to the formation of tornados. It occurs to me that I might have come up with what might prove to be Gemstar's defining moment.

For a long time, the HDTV manufacturers, set-top box manufacturers and the cable providers have been in discussion with each other about agreeing upon a standard that allows the HDTV to contain the elements of the set-top box, eliminating the need for a set-top box as a separate piece of hardware. One of the key issues at the center of this is the treatment of interactive program guides (IPGs). The hardware manufacturer that puts Gemstar's or TV Guide's IPG inside an HDTV doesn't want a cable provider to strip that Guide and replace it with their own Guide sent through the cable.

For me, Gemstar's defining moment will be when these diversely motivated interests come to an agreement about that. Such an agreement will be the signal that all of them appreciate the need for a value chain which supports a single way of doing things that will inure to everyone's benefit. It will allow HDTVs to be adopted on a mass-market level sooner which will lower the price of them which in a chicken-and-egg scenario will allow the mass market to develop at a faster rate. Once HDTVs are being bought at masss-market rates the convergence of television and the Net will happen, having eliminated the constraint that current television resolution is inferior for use of text on the Net. Regardless of how long it takes for Gemstar's tornado to begin after that agreement is made, that agreement will be the defining moment that sets everything else in motion.

Just my opinion.

--Mike Buckley
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