Investor A; Is there a B? It is hard to say how that will eveolve. The fast obsolescence will not fly in that market, and many others will make web TVs, so he may not have the monopoly he has now. He is trying to get in there and be a de facto standard, but the smll nature of the web tvs will allow for cheap proprietory viewing browsers that will print, as that is all they need to do. Want more buy a computer. A good system to display on a HDTV can easily be made to sell for $499 with a 2 gig hard drive and 16Meg of memory. The most expensive single part of a system is now the monitor, using the TV bypasses that.
I read that web TV has applied for 35 patents on what they want to do. I wonder how many are just obvious stuff, that will only stand with Gates lawyers ready to litigate any infringer.
I suspect that is really what he was buying, a litigating posture for a monopoly.
After all, what is unique about a TV for a computer display, Apple did that in 1977 with their RF modulators. So if you just have a computer and a TV, whats to patent that is a true innovation. Ordering Pizza over cable? That won't fly.
A single chip to do it all, that wont fly either, as it is commonplace to replace a circuit board with a custom chip, and so that has been done.
Bill |
