steve:
nothing appears to be set in stone on this:
Inter@ctive WeekJanuary 16, 1998
Intel May Not Make Short List In Set-Top Deal
Joe McGarvey
10:30 AM EST
Although the first 5 million or so digital set-top boxes to be delivered
by Tele-Communications Inc. to cable subscribers will be based on a
scaled-down version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system,
chances are slim that Intel Corp., Microsoft's longtime partner in the
PC world, will supply the processor chips.
Speculation on which companies will provide ingredients for the more
than 15 million cable set-top boxes that NextLevel Systems Inc. will
build for cable operators in the next few years has turned to possible
chip suppliers, following TCI's announcement last week that Microsoft
and Sun Microsystems Inc. will provide software for the first wave of
equipment.
Although Intel has been rumored as a front-runner for a deal that could
be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, at least one analyst said the
microprocessor giant will miss out on the first round of contracts.
"It's most likely that those boxes won't have 'Intel Inside' written on
them," said Will Strauss, an analyst at Forward Concepts, a
semiconductor research firm in Tempe, Ariz.
Strauss said Intel's line of microprocessors is neither powerful nor
inexpensive enough to qualify for consideration as the main source of
power and intelligence for the new set-top devices, which are expected
to run applications that combine Internet content and television
programming, as well as perform traditional tasks, such as decoding
massive amounts of digital audio and video.
Even Intel's family of Pentium II chips, Strauss said, would have to be
fortified with additional processing power to handle video and audio
decoding chores. In addition, Strauss estimated that in order for the
box to remain in the $250 to $300 price range, the microprocessor can
cost set-top makers no more than $25.
The low end of the Pentium II family is priced at $268, according to Tom
Waldrop, Intel spokesman.
Chip suppliers most likely to cash in immediately on the set-top
deployment are LSI Logic Corp., Texas Instruments Inc. and VLSI
Technology Inc., all of which offer integrated chips that could satisfy
the demands of the new digital television boxes, Strauss said.
Dick Badler, NextLevel vice president of corporate communications, said
a decision regarding chip suppliers will likely be made in a month or
so.
Intel can be reached at www.intel.com
NextLevel can be reached at www.nlvl.com
LSI Logic can be reached at www.lsilogic.com
Texas Instruments can be reached at www.ti.com
VLSI can be reached at www.vlsi.com |
