[opendtv] SBC Joins the Convergence Crowd
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 07:06:19 -0500
http://www.thestreet.com/tech/georgemannes/10201486_2.html
SBC Joins the Convergence Crowd
By George Mannes
Senior Writer
1/3/2005 6:17 PM EST
The siren song of digital convergence appears to be claiming another
victim: SBC Communications
Following the treacherous route previously navigated by Microsoft
and others who have tried to merge the personal computer and
television experiences, SBC on Monday announced a new venture
designed to meet Americans' ostensibly overwhelming demand to use
their TV sets as digital camera slide projectors or caller ID
readouts.
With the wireline phone business being eroded by wireless, and cable
operators like Comcast muscling in, SBC and other telcos are looking
to video and entertainment as opportunities for growth -- as they
often have in times of uncertainty.
Monday's announcement -- which follows SBC's November announcement
that it will be spending billions to build a fiber-optic network for
delivering TV signals to households -- is a further illustration of
the telco's desire to be a major player in the multimedia
entertainment business.
But SBC's ungainly sounding description of the hardware central to
the venture -- a box that combines a satellite TV receiver, digital
video recorder, video-on-demand delivery system, music jukebox,
caller ID display and photo viewer -- raises the question of whether
potential customers will view SBC's hydra-headed offering as a
panacea or pestilence.
In theory, it may seem obvious that consumers would want a grand
unifying device to easily mesh all the gadgetry in their households.
As SBC spokesman Andy Shaw explains, the company's set-top box,
offered in conjunction with privately held 2Wire, will let people
connect their computer with their TV and stereo system "without
having to be a serious geek to do it."
But in practice over the past few years, marketers have consistently
overestimated end-users' desire for such convergent visions, or to
watch any displays on their TV sets other than movies and TV shows.
"I suspect it will fail," says Phillip Swann, a writer and
consultant who is president of TVPredictions.com. "They're not
communicating something that will enhance the traditional television
experience," he says. Rather, he says, SBC is offering something that
will intrude on the television experience, or complicate it.
To use the new service, which SBC plans to roll out in mid-2005,
consumers will have to subscribe to both satellite TV, via SBC's
joint venture with EchoStar Communications, and DSL service, via
SBC's joint venture with Yahoo.
At the heart of the service will be a satellite TV receiver with
built-in digital video recorder -- one which will enable users to
access digital pictures, via their TV, and music, via their stereo
systems, that may be stored elsewhere in the household on a PC. Using
any computer with Internet access, consumers will also be able to
program their home DVRs to record particular programming. At some
point in the future, consumers will also be able to access their home
networks via SBC's majority-owned Cingular Wireless.
"The big story is the integration -- making all these disparate
products talk to each other," says Shaw, not just putting a number of
different products together on one bill.
And though TV slide shows have been around for years without the
phenomenon having taken off, Shaw says there's a demand for it,
analogous to people's interest in watching vacation videos. "We think
there is great benefit to this," he says.
But Swann is skeptical about putting the square peg of computing
into the round hole of television. "Every time they talk about
PC-like features on the TV, they lose about 96% of their potential
audience," he says. "They're doing things because they can, not
because people want them."
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