To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (14326 ) 11/21/1997 11:43:00 AM From: Daniel Schuh Read Replies (2) | Respond to
LET THE SET-TOP WARS BEGIN businessweek.com Cable Labs' decision trades speed to market for unassailable control of cable's infrastructure in the years to come. ''A single operating system [would have] made application development somewhat easier,'' concedes Schleyer, who is leading the group. ''But the general feeling was there was the potential to have the owner of that operating system dominate the TV domain.'' By choosing multiple systems, the cable industry, the technology industry, and consumers will have to sift through two or three versions of applications for the new cable network. ''That's unfortunate,'' says Schleyer, ''but it's a fact of life. We had to trade off the potential long-term cost of losing control of [our own] industry if we let one operating system dominate.'' Some top tech execs, especially Netscape's James Barksdale and Oracle's Larry Ellison, took it upon themselves to remind the cable moguls how dangerous it is for an industry to be dominated by a single player. ''Microsoft just overstepped itself,'' says one senior executive familiar with the talks. ''It probably could have gotten what it wanted if it had been more cautious in how it presented its proposal. Microsoft has been kind of paternalistic. Cable guys have big egos, are self-made men, and don't like to be talked down to.'' So when Cable Labs invited tech companies to submit proposals, Microsoft had little choice but to get in line, along with 25 others. The cable moguls' preference for control over speed seems to be an irritant. ''We've been ready for six months,'' says Mundie. As the battle for the set-top box plays out, Microsoft and its tech rivals will have to adjust their calendars to
