Archive for March, 2006
PortalPlayer Preface Chipset Gaining Recognition
PortalPlayer (PLAY) continues to follow a trajectory of diversification from it’s core Apple (AAPL) iPod business. Portalplayer currently derives 90% of it’s revenue from Apple iPod and Nano hardware sales and is working on a new chip in partnership with Microsoft (MSFT) called Preface. Preface is the brain around which Microsoft Sideshow is built. We’ve written about the potential for the Preface chipset, and there are a few recent developments that reinforce our opinions here that I thought were worth sharing.
Most people saw the Sideshow announcement as constrained to laptop lids- we continue to maintain that Sideshow (and the Preface chips designed for it) is part of a larger strategy by Microsoft to enter the Personal Media Player (PMP) market. It would appear that Microsoft is now showcasing the Sideshow technology in some of these alternative applications, and that the mainstream press is picking up on this trend.
Windows CE Pro reports:
Well, SideShow isn’t just for laptops anymore. During the Media Center Boot Camp at the Electronic House Expo here in Orlando, Fla., Todd Rutherford, Microsoft Program Manager for eHome Control, demonstrated the technology implemented in a handheld remote. Just because it is a product of Microsoft’s mobility group doesn’t mean the solution must be tethered to a laptop.
SideShow can be implemented on virtually any piece of hardware capable of connecting, whether by WiFi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Ethernet, you name it. These auxiliary devices grab “gadgets” from the PC. Gadgets are mini applications that are sent, in an encrypted format, to the remote hardware by the computer.
In short, Preface is an ultraportable hardware platform for many devices and applications.
Also, If you’re interested in Sideshow and what applications Preface can enable, and can endure 20 minutes of amateur video, check out this clip from Robert Scoble (of Scobelizer fame). Just remember, Sideshow is a generic synchronization and consumer electronics technology, not just something that fits into the lid of a laptop.
Microsoft is clearly trying to drive hardware standardization of low-end consumer electronics hardware with Sideshow, much like it has been with Windows Mobile 5.0 for high end mobile devices. It isn’t clear to me that the valueship of a hardware partnership is factored into the value of Portalplayer. Microsoft, like Apple, can be an effective kingmaker in the hardware business. Check out HTC (2498.TW), a Taiwanese company that manufactures many of the Windows Mobile Smartphones and PDAs.
AT&T Project Lightspeed and the Jedi Mind Trick
The Death Star is looking vulnerable these days.
AT&T (T ) COO Randall Stephenson, speaking yesterday at Bank of America’s 2006 Media, Entertainment and Telecommunications conference attempted to exercise his marketing skills with a poor attempt at a Jedi Mind Trick.
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Expropriation is Not Competition, Even in France
The Wall Street Journal published an article on CLEC activity in France which praised the efforts of the French equivalent of UNE regulation and highlights the ‘competitive’ environment it has created. Yesterday the WSJ covered (and we commented on) the German government and Deutsche Telekoms efforts to have UNE rolled back.
UNE, like Net Neutrality, is a confiscatory government policy that expropriates an asset from it’s owner.
The article focuses on the ’success’ of a French CLEC called Iliad.
One telecom company in particular has exploited the changes and created competition in France — a start-up called Iliad. Over 1.1 million French subscribers pay as low as €29.99 ($36) monthly for a “triple play” package called Free that includes 81 TV channels, unlimited phone calls within France and to 14 countries, and high-speed Internet. The least expensive comparable package from most cable and phone operators in the U.S. is more than $90, although more TV channels are generally included.
And this is how Ilaid’s model works, for those who need a quick into to what UNE regulations are all about.
France Telecom had to allow alternative providers like Iliad, Neuf-Cegetel, and Telecom Italia SpA’s Alice to install their own equipment in the massive underground centers that collect thousands of phone lines. Regulators determine how much France Telecom could charge providers to rent its lines and how many days France Telecom has to fix service problems reported by competitors’ customers.
The reality? The fantastic broadband performance figures Iliad delivers are from a subset of users that happen to be close to central offices. Using UNE, Iliad can decide which customers they can market to, claim those lines from the incumbent telco, and then leave the high cost/low margin business to the incumbent.
CLECs like Iliad are only as good as the infrastructure they can free ride on.
The same situation existed in the USA until the Brand X decision was handed down, and that led to the rapid unraveling (2003, 2004, 2005) of domestic UNE regulations. The result? AT&T (T ) and Verizon (VZ) have now committed billions of dollars to build state of the art infrastructure.
The fact is broadband penetration in France and Germany is less than the USA, and real deployment of advanced FTTH infrastructure is nil in Europe with the exception of muni fiber in Amsterdam.
The real result of the ’success’ of Iliad and other CLECs is France Telecom isn’t deploying any new advanced infrastructure because they don’t want to be forced to hand it over to a CLEC. Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, and Telefonica are all refusing to build new infrastructure until the obligation to allow another to free-ride on top of it is removed. This has pitted them against the wishes of the EU- which was the focus of my post yesterday.
Companies only invest risk capital when the potential returns warrant it, regardless of the wishes and magical wand waving of pundits and politicos in Brussels or Washington DC. Telcos will simply refuse to make new investments in technology if the upside rate of return is regulated by a government entity and the downside risk is left unlimited.
The only solution is to create an environment where multiple providers are financially incentivized to build competitive access infrastructures.
Here’s a summary of the blogosphere. Not surprising, everyone confuses expropriation with competition.
The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) ratified their full specification today.
While reading this news item, I also noticed that Entropic publiclly announced their partnership with Motorola to provide MoCA chipsets in Verizon’s FiOS TV deployment. I broke the news a few weeks earlier (after sitting on it for two months following CES).
Impressions of a Data Center
A few weeks back, while in CA for OFC/NFOEC, I was lucky to get a late night tour of 365 Main, a massive, state of the art data center near the Embarcadero in San Francisco. My guide, Peter Kranz, was someone I worked with and co-adventured with in College who is now the owner and CEO of Unwired, a San Francisco based CLEC. His equipment is in this data center, and he invited me in for a look.
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