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

To: DiViT who wrote (34497)	7/20/1998 1:41:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

How do you get DCT-5000 boxes out next year? Don't add all the parts......................................... multichannel.com Weekly Edition for July 20, 1998: TCI Will Launch DCT-5000 Boxes Without Full Suite of Services By LESLIE ELLIS Four months have elapsed since TCI promised additional foliage in its "walled garden" of interactive services, which started in March with a nod to BankAmerica Corp. and Intuit Inc. Now, Tele-Communications Inc. is thinking that it will launch the first advanced-digital set-tops -- namely, General Instrument Corp.'s DCT-5000 line -- without a full suite of interactive services, opting instead to get the hardware in place while the content deals catch up. "We've unhooked the software side and the hardware side ... the goal is to start deploying [advanced-digital set-top] hardware at the earliest possible date, and that may well be before the initial suite of software is ready," said David Beddow, senior vice president of TCI's National Digital Television Center. GI is expected to tell financial analysts this week that it will begin volume shipments of the new DCT-5000 box by next June. Content arrangements notwithstanding, TCI's work to combine several software pieces is progressing well technically, said Adam Grosser, vice president of product development for @Home Network. These include Microsoft Corp.'s Windows CE operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s PersonalJava middleware, an as-yet-undecided navigator and an e-mail client from @Home. Five months ago, TCI selected @Home to develop the e-mail client and to assist the MSO in integrating the various software elements for its interactive-TV play. Grosser said executives from all sides -- Microsoft, Sun, GI and TCI -- meet weekly, adding @Home has erected an entire wing to house the nearly 30 people who are now working on @Home's TV-content play. He said the built-in animosity between Microsoft and Sun -- which recently caused TCI chairman and CEO John Malone to describe the integration as an exercise in "mating porcupines" -- is starting to resolve itself, even though Sun is suing Microsoft other over Java-deployment issues. TCI executives noted early frustrations with Microsoft and Sun because each wanted the other to produce working software before proceeding. "With every project where there are multiple vendors, there's always some period of 'schedule chicken' in the beginning," Grosser said. "But as the project gets more tangible, it becomes a self-correcting issue." Beddow's interactive status report showed final details about: How standards-based cable modems are integrated into advanced-digital boxes; The adoption of Sony Corp.'s version of "fire wire" as an interim play until industry standards are completed; An initial distribution of application program interfaces; and The development of a hardware reference platform for various players to use until the DCT-5000 set-tops are ready. He said TCI still needs to resolve what TV customers will first see when they want to go interactive. "[The navigation] piece is under intense scrutiny right now," Beddow said.