>Do you see this (OpenTV ported to VxWorks, announced in unison with Thomson Sun) as the start of many similar announcements? Any guess on monetary impact this yr, next yr?
Both WIND and INTS have committed to porting OpenTV to their respective RTOS; while MWAR has worked hard, expending scarce resources, to embed OpenTV-like functionality in DAVID, a variant of OS-9. MWAR has alliances not only with many digital TV component manufacturers (CDi, settop boxes, DVD, etc.), but with companies developing functionality on the server-side, e.g. Oracle. Obviously, MWAR is trying to add sufficient value to its offerings in the digital TV space to hold WIND and INTS at bay. For example, MWAR held a digital TV conference last May in Japan.
Meanwhile, along comes the Thomson Sun partnership joining a giant electronics firm and Sun Microsystems in an effort to create the standard for interactive TV server functionality, client responses and associated protocols. Given the weight of the partnership, OpenTV might well become the standard, which means that overnight WIND, INTS and anyone else able and willing to commit to the OpenTV, is on the technical leading edge of interactive TV. (An aside: If I remember correctly, Thomson developed, or was developing, a settop box using a roll-your-own RTOS.)
With all the other advantages WIND brings to the generic RTOS party, if the digital TV playing field is perfectly level, then WIND wins. You can only beat WIND with added value (i.e. vertical niche markets WIND chooses not to pursue aggressively). Unfortunately, for pursuers of this strategy, industry-accepted open systems can wipe out any hard-won advantage virtually overnight.
Only the promise, not than the payoff, of interactive TV has excited RTOS vendors and investors thus far. When INTS announced an agreement to put pSOS on the HP settop box, its stock price went up $2 in one day. By the time WIND announced a similar agreement with Hyundae Electronics of America, the market reaction was muted. Similarly, the recent OpenTV announcement will not move the stock noticeably.
But digital TV is coming, and will eventually justify all the excitement, which is why all the RTOS vendors still are trying to lay claims. Nobody knows exactly what form digital TV will take in commodity volume (server or client). Nevertheless, with this announcement, it would appear that WIND is not conceding this niche to MWAR or INTS, positioning to dominate instead. Moreover, WINDÆs strategy is not wasteful of even their plentiful resources.
Allen |
