TVPAK..............................
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Broadband Week for June 21, 1999
Microsoft TV Draws the Crowds While Others Vie for Attention
By BILL MENEZES June 21, 1999
Chicago -- Industry vendors lined up last week to support Microsoft Corp.'s television-software platform, while rival operating-system providers scrambled for MSO attention as their giant competitor gained momentum.
More than 30 companies encompassing the industry's largest hardware manufacturers, chip makers, network operators, system integrators and application developers announced during the National Show here that they were actively working with Microsoft's "TV Platform Adaptation Kit."
The so-called TVPAK contains client software for operating set-tops and other television appliances, plus server software used at the headend for deploying and managing advanced services.
Microsoft TV uses an adaptation of the Windows CE operating system and elements of the WebTV Networks Internet-access platform to enable such digital-set-top-box functionality as digital video, interactive broadcast programming, Web browsing, electronic commerce and telephony.
The software is still under development for cable: The TV Server suite will be available to operators later this year, with an eye toward supporting commercial deployments in the first half of 2000.
It was unclear if MSOs, which have still largely not disclosed decisions about what will run their next-generation digital set-tops, were clamoring for Windows-based solutions. AT&T Broadband & Internet Services is the only significant North American operator so far to disclose plans to use the platform.
But this week's announcements underlined the sense that although there are other, more mature interactive-TV platforms, the vendor community increasingly does not want to be caught short if MSO customers begin choosing Microsoft's platform for their next-generation advanced services.
"Certainly, the AT&T Windows CE selection drives set-top vendor preferences for an operating system," said Michael Harris, president of consulting firm Kinetic Strategies Inc. "They want to be sure they have the solution for the potentially largest set-top purchaser."
Vendors at the show agreed, pointing to Microsoft's recent $5 billion investment in AT&T in return for a deal to put WinCE into up to 10 million set-tops and to give Microsoft a significant role at the headend of the operator's rebuilt two-way networks.
"You can speak real loud when you've got $5 billion to put on the table," said Bob Van Orden, vice president of product marketing for digital-subscriber networks at Scientific-Atlanta Inc., which owns the rival "PowerTV" operating-system platform. "If the market wants that solution, we want to provide the choice."
General Instrument Corp. showed Microsoft TV applications such as Web browsing running on its advanced "DCT-5000" set-top. Executives indicated that the platform still needed development work, but no more so than solutions from its other DCT-5000 software partners.
"We're seeing strong interest from other parties, as well [as AT&T] -- not to the exclusion of other solutions, but Microsoft's certainly a leader out there," said David Robinson, senior vice president of GI's digital-network-systems unit.
"Some operators will choose a portion of the package instead of the entire suite," Robinson added. "But if you're looking for an all-in-one solution, Microsoft is one of the few you can count on to perform."
Philips Consumer Electronics Co. -- which has a long relationship with Microsoft from making WebTV terminals and handheld computer and "Palm PC" devices running on WinCE -- demonstrated basic WebTV-type applications on its own set-tops and said it plans to port Microsoft TV to an upcoming box based on its own "Trimedia" microprocessor.
Philips Digital Video Systems Co. general manager Rudy Roth said it took Philips engineers only a few weeks to port Microsoft's television-software stack to his company's open-architecture set-top.
"The TVPAK software is, from an applications viewpoint, nothing new. It's basically WebTV plus other applications," Roth said. "The big difference is that until now, it was available only on the WebTV chip set and software. This makes it available on a wider range of product from multiple players."
Roth added that besides offering Microsoft's complete applications suite running on WinCE, Philips was working on its own applications, and it expected commercial availability of a WinCE box -- now in alpha release -- by the first quarter.
"We want to provide solutions that are optimized for our customers," Roth said, noting that the Digital Video Broadcasting platform set-tops Philips is supplying to MediaOne Group Inc. run on Canal Plus' "MediaHighway" software stack. "We have Windows CE already, and we're proving that it's working."
But with Microsoft's solution still not commercially available, some vendors had not seen significant MSO interest in supporting the platform.
"Outside of AT&T, we're not" seeing demand, said William Wall, technical director of S-A's subscriber-networks sector.
S-A boasted set-top developments of its own at the show, formally introducing the next generation of its advanced digital set-tops, the "Explorer 6000," which it has been informally displaying for a couple of months.
Scheduled for second-quarter-2000 availability, the 6000 will support all major video and modem standards, such as DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) and DAVIC (Digital Audio/Video Interoperability Council), as well as Microsoft TV, its own PowerTV operating system and other platforms.
The 6000 will also support high-definition television and the point-of-deployment security module required to meet the government's July 2000 deadline for separating security and channel-selection functions.
Other solutions providers also used the show to jockey for attention as open-system alternatives to Windows.
Software developer Mindport announced that it plans to expand into the North American market with designs for an OpenCable-compliant set-top box running the OpenTV operating system and featuring a DOCSIS-based modem and Mindport's POD.
Mindport said it would demonstrate the POD at next month's operability testing by Cable Television Laboratories Inc. and at an interoperability event planned by the Federal Communications Commission July 26.
Mindport, which owns 80 percent of OpenTV, is a relative latecomer to the North American market. But 3 million set-tops internationally use its applications, operating system and conditional-access products.
U.S. direct-broadcast satellite provider EchoStar Communications Corp. will launch OpenTV's interactive-program platform this fall, which OpenTV believes will open MSOs' minds to its products.
"Everybody hedges on Microsoft just because Microsoft is Microsoft," OpenTV CEO Jan Steenkamp said. "Whether Microsoft has the most compelling solution in the market today is questionable."
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