"...it has secured a pretty dominant position in this marketplace, both on the server and client side,'' said Scott McAdams
I think McAdams overstates things a bit. They've bought themselves what could be called a "prominent" position, but far from a dominant one. But one has to be impressed with Maffei's negotiating skill in pulling this off. One must also stand in awe of Armstrong's skill at putting the whole group of deals together.
News.com has a few recently updated analyses of the MSFT/T deal. In this one, they argue that CE probably isn't (yet) the best OS for settop boxes:
news.com
But, in spite of the technical problems that were partly to blame for its limited acceptance, today's deal gives Microsoft far more clout in the market than they would have had, and gives it the time it needs to fix the technical shortcomings of the system:
news.com
In this SmartMoney story, the writer argues that Microsoft faces many hurdles before it could become dominent in the market:
smartmoney.com
Even with five-million set-tops running Microsoft's CE product, there's a market of roughly 68 million cable subscribers in the U.S., by most estimates, and 103 million television households, which is basically the "addressable market" for the cable folks. (Cable passes about 90% of those households.) That leaves a lot of set-tops for Microsoft's competitors.
One can find another of the many analyst takes on the deal and a significant comment from Armstrong in this MSNBC story:
msnbc.com
“This is Microsoft's business to win or lose,” said Lehman Brothers analyst Blake Bath. “And assuming that they really do have the kind of link that they say they have, and commit to deploying this very, very aggressively — if they prove themselves a good partner, it seems like they will have vast majority — if not all of — the business.”
That's a claim Armstrong strongly disputes.
“This in no ways dulls or diminishes our enthusiasm for Java for Sun's inclusion,” Armstrong told CNBC. “What this does do is speak to the reality of the rollout of what is ready. And what's ready today is the Windows CE that permits us to deploy set top boxes.” |
