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

To: Maya who wrote (39270)	3/15/1999 11:37:00 AM
From: Bob Strickland	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

That really moved the stock!

To: Maya who wrote (39270)	3/15/1999 1:12:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Put Cube inside, cut your costs and lower the consumer price... KIRCH TO SUBSIDISE D-BOX TO DM399 03/08/99 Inside Digital TV (c) 1999 Phillips Business Information, Inc. In a strategic decision that could impact dramatically on Germany's digital television market the Kirch Group has decided to slash the price of the d - box . According to reliable sources, the Munich-based media company intends to subsidise the price end consumers have to pay for the set-top box needed to receive the digital services from pay-TV operators DF1 and Premiere from the current DM1,000 (Pounds 350) to just DM399. The official announcement is expected to be made at the computer and electronics fair CeBIT which takes place in Hannover from March 18-24. With this surprising move, Kirch Group not only intends to win more subscribers to its DF1 package which currently only has a little over 300,000 subs, but also to boost the development of the German market in general. Bearing in mind that the company is close to taking control of Premiere, it makes sense to create a large potential audience for digital pay-TV services. Premiere is Germany's leading pay-TV operator with 1.7 million subscribers, 400,000 of which receive the channel's digital package. DF1 spokesman Nikolaus von der Decken confirmed that the d-box price will be reduced to "less than DM 500", but he declined to give any specific figure. He would neither confirm nor deny the DM399 price. Von der Decken stressed that only customers that take a DF1 subscription will be able to get the d - box at the reduced price. Competing set-top-box manufacturers have indicated that they intend to undercut the new d - box price. The so-called free-to-air boxes are also sold at the DM1,000 price point. The high price for digital receivers has long been seen as one of the main obstacles for digital television to reach critical mass in Germany. DF1 intends to increase its package of 30 thematic channels through the introduction of further services in the second half of this year. According to von der Decken, talks are currently held with publishing house Heinrich Bauer Verlag to launch a TV channel based on the popular printed youth magazine Bravo. It is also planned to add a female or male presenter to DF1's barker channel Infokanal which shows highlights and trailers from the channels and pay-per-view services available on the DF1 platform. Sky Digital already uses an on-screen presenter for its information.

To: Maya who wrote (39270)	3/15/1999 1:23:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

The new D-Box's run Sun's Chorus real-time embedded operating system... SUN MICROSYSTEMS: Sun wins set-top box software deal with European DTV technology provider BetaResearch 10/29/98 M2 PRESSWIRE (c) Copyright 1998 M2 Communications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved -- Kirch subsidiary to deploy set-top boxes based on Sun embedded operating system technology Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced that it has won a deal with BetaResearch, a major European digital television technology provider who plans to implement Sun embedded operating system technology in future products. This agreement follows Sun's recent news with TCI to include Java technology in every set-top box it deploys, and its Hitachi set-top box deal. These deals demonstrate Sun's increasing technology presence in the global set-top box and interactive television markets. BetaResearch, a wholly owned subsidiary of the KirchGroup, is involved in research and development and marketing of digital TV infrastructures and multimedia services worldwide. BetaResearch provides complete end-to-end systems, tailored to its customers' individual needs, including conditional access, decoder technology, network management, program scheduling and subscriber management systems associated with both public and pay audio, video and data broadcasting. beta's " d - box " is a multimedia receiver of digital audio, video and data services that are broadcast into homes via satellite and cable, according to the open standards of the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project. The next generation d - box based on Sun's ChorusOS real-time embedded operating system, will deliver an even higher performance, improved graphics and a wide range of new services to subscribers. With the initial rollout planned to start at the beginning of 1999, BetaResearch expects the d - box user base will grow to more than 5 million over the next five years. "We chose Sun's ChorusOS over a range of other embedded operating systems because of its small, efficient memory footprint, its powerful real-time engine for handling multimedia digital broadcast", said David Gillies, Head of Research and Development at BetaResearch. "BetaResearch is committed to a strategic initiative around the Java platform in order to better differentiate our services from the competition. By selecting Sun's ChorusOS software, the real-time foundation for the Sun JavaOS product family, BetaResearch can easily extend the product to take advantage of the Java platform." "Sun is excited to be working with BetaResearch, a leader in set-top box development, on its d - box system," said Jean-Pierre Baudouin, general manager with Sun's Consumer and Embedded. "Over the last six months, Sun has been successfully setting its embedded real-time solutions apart in a very fragmented market where the largest installed software is proprietary and 'homegrown.' With time-to-market pressures and the move to Java technology accelerating, BetaResearch like many major consumer device suppliers is moving to the Sun platform over competing products from small niche suppliers and in-house developments efforts." Germany's Hollywood BetaResearch is a company of the KirchGroup, the German media group, which is active in film and television production, distribution and broadcasting on an international scale. The KirchGroup is one of the major suppliers of films, series, classical music and children's programming for television in Europe. In Germany it has interests in the two commercial channels SAT.1 and DF1. Its pay TV activities include the first digital platform in the German speaking markets, DF1, and stakes in Premiere (Germany) and Teleclub (Switzerland). KirchGroup also has interests in the Spanish commercial broadcaster Telecinco and in Italy's largest television company Mediaset. BetaResearch licenses its technology to Premiere, DF1, Deutsche Telekom AG, other service providers and decoder manufacturers. The BetaResearch d - box provides access to hundreds of TV and radio channels. Planning to expand the business to other countries, BetaResearch is fast becoming a leading supplier for digital video broadcasting (DVB) technologies. Sun's Embedded Operating System Product Family The embedded operating system product family from Sun includes a variety of operating systems designed for network-connected devices - from switches in telecommunications networks, to thin-client network computers and consumer information appliances. For more information on Sun's embedded software offerings, please visit www.sun.com/javaos/ and www.sun.com/chorusos/. About Sun Microsystems, Inc. Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The Computer," has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of high quality hardware, software, and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $10 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide Web at sun.com. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, The Network Is The Computer, Java OS, ChorusOS, Java and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. M2 COMMUNICATIONS DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY FOR INFORMATION PROVIDED WITHIN M2 PRESSWIRE. DATA SUPPLIED BY NAMED PARTY/PARTIES. Contact: CONTACT: Rebecca Baer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tel: +1 408 863-3275 e-mail: rebecca.baer@eng.sun.com Dr. Manuel Cubero, BetaResearch Tel: +49-89-9956 7090 e-mail: Manuel_Cubero@KirchGruppe.DE

To: Maya who wrote (39270)	3/15/1999 1:36:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Italy the next digital receiver battle ground... "Irdeto". Hmm, that sound familiar... UNCERTAINTY AHEAD FOR ITALIANS 02/22/99 Inside Digital TV (c) 1999 Phillips Business Information, Inc. It's a well known fact that the destiny of digital receiver manufacturers is closely linked with the strategic decisions made by pay-TV operators. In Italy, the decision to introduce digital boxes with Seca conditional access and the Media-Highway API, which followed the entrance of Canal+ as the majority shareholder in Tele+, brought about a change in direction for receiver manufacturers. A prime example is Nokia, present in the Italian market since the launch of digital TV in 1996. Nokia has sold 150,000 digital boxes, out of which between 110,000 and 120,000 use Irdeto conditional access (CA). In November 1998, Nokia started distributing the first leased boxes containing the Canal+ Seca CA system and up until now 35,000 have been dispatched. Although Nokia claims to have received assurances from Tele+ that it will continue providing its service to all Nokia consumers with a Irdeto box, the pay-TV operator is clearly backing Seca. In fact Tele+ will soon launch a special offer aimed at enticing those subscribers who own an Irdeto box to substitute it with one which is Seca compatible, offering a six months free lease on the new decoder as an incentive. Dutch electronics giant Philips, on the other hand, did not have to change its marketing strategy, having been the first official supplier of Seca boxes for Tele+'s parent company Canal+. Philips entered the Italian market in 1997, supplying Tele+ with decoders, which were offered for lease to subscribers (32,000 units have been supplied so far). Pace, which has sold 100,000 digital decoders in Italy, has also bet on Seca, having given up more than a year ago on producing Irdeto boxes. The Italian digital decoder situation is further complicated by the fact that market leader Tele+ has chosen to use two different technologies. This has caused problems, especially after the recent introduction of movies and sports events on a pay-per-view basis. To date, Canal+ has guaranteed the compatibility between two technologies, Irdeto and Seca, by adopting Simulcrypt and thus transmitting two sets of codes. However, senior Canal+ managers are pressing for the substitution of the Irdeto boxes, which are not capable of managing the new interactive services. The Irdeto boxes which are available on the Italian market have been constructed to work with the OpenTV application programme interface (API), while Tele+ prefers to use the proprietary software MediaHighway, developed to work together with the Seca conditional access system. Simulcrypt overcomes any problems created by the CA, but the near-interactive services require the use of the Application Programme Interface (API), the software which enables the management of the "on-board computer" of the digital decoder. At the moment the different API 'languages' are not compatible with each other which in practice means that the digital operators transmit their services in only one language. Consequently, subscribers with an Irdeto box have no possibility whatsoever of accessing the interactive services. There are several possible solutions to this problem. First of all, the installed base of Irdeto boxes in Italy could be easily converted to a different API, which means that the digital operator would have to conduct the remote download of the new operative software. However, much will depend on the exit of the negotiations, which could see Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Europe buying an 80 per cent stake in Stream, Italy's second digital platform. Stream has chosen Irdeto as the CA system and API Open TV. If Murdoch should chose to bring the NDS system VideoGuard to Italy, Pace would start in pole position, since it already has the license to produce NDS boxes and are one of the official suppliers for Sky Digital in the UK.