Chaz, I think the appeal behind something like CE or JavaOS is that it's standardized--no more proprietary/incompatible stuff across various systems. For example, the handheld PC market used to have a proprietary system from each vendor. This meant few apps, because nothing had enough marketshare to make it worthwhile. But then, we got WindowsCE which is supported by many vendors, as well, PalmPilot emerged as the marketshare leader--so apps have become focused on it. The others (like Psion, and proprietary offering from HP, Casio, Sharp, etc.) are being fazed out.
What happened to the handheld market, I believe, is exactly what will happen with PC-TV. A company like MSFT has enough weight to get their OS supported by a lot of vendors (which they're doing, in part, by makking investments in cable companies), and then there may be another (JavaOS) that also gets marketshare.
BTW, though, are you sure that MS doesn't scale the cost of the OS to the cost of the box or the volume at all? How does that work?
I am 99.99% sure that MSFT gets the same royalty per PC sold, no matter what the cost. I think each PC vedor negotiates with their expected volume (ie., Dell slightly pays less than a third-tier box maker) and for other special things, afterwhich, the royalty fee is flat. I will try to get more info... |
