TCI sees cable set top box standards soon
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Reuters Story - January 09, 1998 17:06
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PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan 9 (Reuters) - A senior executive of
leading U.S. cable television company Tele-Communications Inc
said Friday the company and its open cable initiative industry
partners have yet to select a microprocessor or operating
system for new advanced digital television set-top boxes.
"We have not settled as of today to a specific
microprocessor or operating system," Bruce Ravenel, president
and CEO of TCI.NET and senior vice president of TCI
Communicaitons Inc. said in a conference call.
"This is a fast-moving process and those decisions are
being made as we speak," he told reporters and analysts.
"The time frame is in the immediate future. We can't spend
much time dilly-dallying about the future," said Ravenel of the
decision to select a microprocessor and operating system. He
said more than one of each might be chosen.
The comments came as TCI announced with Sun Microsystems
Inc. that the companies had reached agreement for TCI
to use Sun's PersonalJava as standard sofware on its advanced,
fully configured digital set top boxes.
Ravenel said TCI planned to begin shipping the advanced
boxes in early 1999, and that TCI expected to ship 6.5 million
to 10 million of the boxes.
Some early reports of TCI's pending deal with Sun said it
had angered software giant Microsoft Corp. , which is
engaged in an often bitter rivalry with Sun over control of new
technology platforms as computing becomes more pervasive.
Microsoft has been frequently reported to be closing in on
a deal of its own with TCI, and has been rumored to even be
willing to invest $1 billion of its multibillion dollar cash
pile to help debt-ridden TCI roll out digital capabilities.
But some analysts said the deal appeared to leave plenty of
room for Microsoft to supply its Windows CE operating system,
for example, or semiconductor maker Intel Corp. to
supply the microprocessors.
"We have a relationship with Microsoft and Microsoft may be
a supplier of an operating system to work with this device,"
said Ravenel. "Not every piece of software will be implemented
in PersonalJava," he added, saying some programs would work
just with the processor and system software.
"We've had conversations with Microsoft on an ongoing
basis," he added.
Nevertheless, the Sun-TCI deal will likely irk Microsoft
CEO Bill Gates, who was due to present a keynote address at the
Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Saturday, a day after
a speech by Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy, analysts said.
"I'm sure that Bill Gates is not going to be happy about
this deal," said David Wu, a financial analyst with ABN AMRO
Chicago Corp. "Gates doesn't like anybody (else) to get
anything." |
