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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DiViT who wrote (47756)	11/29/1999 7:56:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

US cable competion.................................. cedmagazine.com part 2............................................. cedmagazine.com But the days when the health of the market was dictated by those two companies are gone. Because of standards initiatives like OpenCable, other manufacturers are seeking business relationships in North America. A classic case-in-point is Pace Micro Technology, Europe's largest digital set-top manufacturer, which was rebuked by U.S. operators a few years ago, but has returned with a new headquarters and a new executive charged with drumming up more U.S. business. The goal will be to build on the momentum the company gained with BellSouth, for which it is building a digital MMDS box. Figure I Pace is armed with a General Instrument DigiCipher license and has already demonstrated a digital set-top with a built-in DOCSIS modem, all in an effort to prove to North American cable operators that it's ready to build a set-top for them. Coming to the Americas for Pace is Neil Gaydon, who was named president of Pace's American sales effort. Based in Boca Raton, Fla., Pace's new U.S. base will house its engineering, sales, marketing, and service divisions for the American markets. As Pace's President of The Americas, Gaydon is responsible for the development of Pace's business in both North and South America, with a particular focus on digital television in the U.S. Not to be left out is Philips, which is close to debuting its set-top in MediaOne's groundbreaking, standards-based system that integrates a DVB-based set-top into a U.S. cable system. Figure 2 Although no details about that integration were available, Philips officials said the company's vision for its set-top is to turn the television into a "portal" and personalize it by giving the consumer total control over his TV viewing experience. In essence, the set-top will act as a central "brain" within the house, into which a variety of other devices will be attached. Like other set-top manufacturers, integrated third-party software and applications (such as that offered by Microsoft, NCI and Sun Microsystems) will be a key focus for Philips as it attempts to gain more North American cable contracts. Another globally-known consumer electronics manufacturer that burst onto the scene in a big way is Sony, which last month announced that it will build up to 3 million digital set-tops for Cablevision, in a deal worth roughly $1 billion. Sony will build the devices to OpenCable specifications, and Cablevision will use them as gateways to new services like video-on-demand, Web-enhanced television, e-mail, interactive game services and other new programming. In the meantime, CableLabs continues to oversee the OpenCable process, which is designed to offer manufacturers and software developers a common platform upon which to develop new devices and applications. Canal Plus, a highly successful European cable operator and software vendor that's working with Philips and MediaOne on the previously mentioned system, intends to import its suite of applications-as well as a conditional access system-to North America. "CableLabs wants one API and everyone to compete for it," notes Jean-Marc Racine, CEO of Canal Plus Technologies in the U.S. "We are responding to that." Racine says Canal Plus has been working to build relationships with cable operators, in an attempt to gain support for its middleware, which allows several real-time, interactive software applications to be run over a set-top box. Perhaps not since the early days of addressability, when literally dozens of manufacturers attempted to enter the cable set-top market, has the North American cable industry seen such competition. That competition, combined with affordable new services, is working to make digital technology more affordable than ever before.