Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Eyes UK Digital TV Provider
xiox writes: "This story by the BBC claims that Microsoft are planning to "rescue" the failed digital TV provider in the UK, ITV Digital. This would enable them to get a large share of the British TV market, as the British Government has decided that all TVs will have to switch over to digital by 2010."
Email me and tell me what you think of widening!
There are all sorts of rumours spreading about ITV Digital at the moment - rumours they've struck a deal with clubs over lowering the amount of cash they'll pay them - rumours as to whether they'll go bankrupt or find a buyer first - how much cash they have left - the list goes on - but they're all that so far - just rumours!
Video Game cheats, hints a
Or does it seem like MS is trying awfully hard to get involved in "every thing " to appear to be helping. Yet, it seems to be all about control. Now, This may be off topic and modded as such, but maybe Government is not what we should be fearing...but rather the Corporations behind the government votes. Everyone in the US learned that their vote doesn't amount to much with the past Presidential election...so maybe this is where the "Big Brother" aspect will appear...
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Looks like another step in a new for media control between Microsoft and AOL-TW.
:-
...
Lets hope the consumer wins out - but then again
<i>"British Government has decided that all TVs will have to switch over to digital by 2010"</i>
Hmmmm
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
The software giant is one of several firms trying to assemble a consortium to take over the wreckage
Why on earth do they need a consortium? ITV Digital's debts are in the region of a few hundred million pounds, as far as I know, but Microsoft is sitting on an actual cash pile of tens of billions. If they truly want it, then the only reason not to buy it outright is surely a political one, not problem of means!
So will Microsoft be giving away a new version of the X-Box as a digital tv receiver? That'd be about the only way to boost sales of X-Box games there.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
If this happens we may need to float the british iles off into the mid atlantic and quietly sink them.
.sig
Wow wont it be great when everything is controlled by microsoft?
Just think: Microsoft TV can hype Microsoft OS that is bundled with Microsoft Internet that wont let you see all that nasty "free" and "good" stuff available.
and noone will have to worry about incompatibilities! it's all microsoft, you know how well their stuff plays with their stuff
wait.......
They are referring to ending analogue terrestrial broadcasting. There is no specification that the broadcast must be via cable or satellite, and in fact, ITV Digital were in the business of providing a new set-top-box to decode terrestrial digital signals.
...and then we can have another spectrum auction and sting the telcos again :-).
.sig
...that Microsoft is going to want to control 'TV' once it becomes integrated with the 'internet'.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft/Gates VS News Corp/ Murdoch.
Mark My Words.
-- Oh Well
ITV had already a dwindling population of subscribers and now that the bad PR of current people will not flock back.
And the second biggest money maker (after drugs) for the UVF and IRA in Northern Ireland was too sell chipped ITV decoders.
I wonder if Ballmer will get his own workout show. It'd be even worse than flashy animation from Japan: siezures and vomiting.
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Isn't gonna happen. There has to be the percentage of use, and if 90% of people haven't switched over, it won't happen.
And I doubt many people will be using Digital Terrestrial, as unfortunately it's pathetic (Note: This is my experience after prolonged use).
So Now anyone in the UK who wants Digital TV is going to have to chose between Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates. Fantastic ;-)
For those Americans Not in the Know obout our state of affairs accross the pond, ITV digital has Over bidded to get the TV rights to most Football (Soccar) games over here and as a result has gone bust. It's parent companies (both established broadcasters "Carlton" and "Granada" are using Legagal technicalities to get out of paying the Football clubs the money they were promised. This has left a lot of smaller, less well off clubs facing financial ruin, unless a buyer can be found. Whilst it is true that I think Microsoft is Vile, if it saves all of the threatened clubs my opinion of them will increase dramatically.
They would be putting themselves in a somewhat compromised position here. They are more interested in buying succeeding businesses (like their attempt at Nintendo).
What they are trying to do is expand into other markets. All big corporations try to 'diversify,' otherwise they get bloated, top-heavy and sink. MS is just looking around for other markets to get into in order to keep themselves going.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
About a week ago, Microsoft laid off about 65 employees in their TV division due a "re-organization". (including me)
Almost all of the people who were cut were developers and technical people.
Since the restructure, they're attempting to target the low-end middleware platform. For example the software that runs on a Motorola DCT-2000 cable box, and gives you the channel listings, and in the future VOD and purchase control.
It makes me wonder what they're trying to accomplish by purchasing yet another small itv company in the UK when they don't make enough money to support their own engineering efforts.
Aaron
MS stuff can work pretty good, once they get it working at all. It is getting to the point where it works that is the problem. Here, they will be getting a system that already does work, technology-wise (not income-wise, which never was a problem for MS).
They could possably expand a working network to do alot of the neat digital tv stuff that people have been talking about, but not actually making/getting.
My point is that, while the problems with MS are obvious (to us), there are also some possable good things that could come from this.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
...but I can't seem to find Ctrl-Alt-Del on my remote.
God no ... we don't really have the AOL-TW thing in the UK.
We have BBC vs Channel 4, that's no bad thing.
Hmmmm ...
The plan being to license the space that is used by terestial TV broadcast to mobile phone companies(and others) for use with new digital services including not only voice but data services. I doubt the mobile phone companies will be interested though since they have been stuck with a rather large bill for the 3G licenses which no customers seem intested in using.
Yet another reason people should just stick to a good ol' book!
At least I don't have to have a Passp0rt just to read it!
Yet...
ITV Digital? "Large share"? Don't make me laugh. Many of us can't even get channel 5 properly, yet, in spite of being in a major city. Those who have satellite and/or cable forget that there are still many, many people in the UK who don't.
This whole story is one big sensationalist rumour. I've heard so many "possibler buyer" stories about ITV Digital in the past couple of weeks that I've lost track. Why is this one any more likely?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Sadly atmo young Tony Blair and Bill Gates appear to be the best of chums - witness the UK govt "sponsoring" some election stuff at a Windows XP release (I think...). Most people would be alarmed at a foreign company taking over a large corp, but I'm sure his mate Tony will see him through alright.
Perhaps they could have a TV show? (cue drum roll...) "...and now, it's the Bill and Blair Show - Mediocrity Galore!!!" Or perhaps "Billy G and Bend-Over Blair"? Where's Mark Thomas when you need him?
It's funny thinking of an election campaign slogan in '97 ("Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime") that Labour came out with - seeing as MS have been found guilty of illegal business practices in the US, will Tony be tough on his pal? Doubt it very much. (btw, they have lost my vote).
Even if the rumors aren't true, this is no surprise. Even before WebTV and MSN (and MSNBC, and so on), Microsoft has planned to get into the telecom business. Don't believe me? Pick up a pre-revised copy of _The Road Ahead_ at your local used bookstore. There is at least one chapter about the future of Microsoft.
At one point there was a rumor that MS wanted to have a controlling investment in a communications satellite. I don't know what happened with that.
This now concludes our broadcast day.
It should be pretty obvious what colour their testcard will be
Hey! Let 'em go into content production for a change.
:-)
We know TV's already full of crap. M$ can't do any harm there. Its already down to the lowest common denominator. Let M$ go broke trying to get into HDTV. Its just a mirage as far as I can tell.
There are still no real standards.
The competition is already there and its dog-eat-dog.
The margins are razor thin.
It'd be something else they'd give up on eventually. (I haven't seen any plans for X-Box][ or X-Box ]|[. Have you?
And they'd be at the whim of their advertisers. It'd be great to see M$ pandering instead of patronizing. M$s share holders will watch the share values drop like a stone but since Bill's still richer than Creosus, he won't care and he still holds the majority so their opinion counts for squat.
I can see it now:
"Debby Does Redmond!"
"M$ Where more that you system goes down!"
"Digitized 'Chech & Chong' in:
'Gotta Crash' "
"MSNBC and CNet television in HDTV.
Boredom with a 9x16 aspect ratio."
I gave up on TV years ago. Don't even own one anymore. Waste of time. When I found yourself flipping through 50+ channels trying to see if there's anything on that caught my attention for more that a second, it was time to abandon it (I just didn't pack it a couple of ago,) and get a life.
Maybe the world'd get usable software instead of Win-doze.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
... The country's going entirely digital in the next ten to twenty years. We now have a choice of who we'd like to run the whole TV network: 1) Bill Gates 2) Rupert Murdoch Thanks a lot. I think I'll have to stay on the net permanently now. At least the BBC's still around...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Hahahahaa :-) For those that don't know, it's actually an inside joke.
:-)
Back in December I was let go from a company formerly owned by TFSM and I was personally in charge of System Integration for a VOD or what we called "POD" system for Verizon Avenue.
We were deployed in two sites here in the Metro D.C. area and for 8 months of my life I gave my all to this project only to have it shattered to pieces to the poor handling of upper management.
Aside from just providing middleware, we also had a rock solid back office suite that contained everything from targeted advertising (world class Connect system - props to the dev team!), and everything related to CRM. Yet with a solid product, we were still going under. (TLC anyone?)
To my knowledge to date, I have not seen any other system that could come close to what our system could do. Granted it still has many issues to resolve, but for a completely digital system end-to-end, from content management, license management, provider payment, contract management, and to customer retention management, there isn't anything out there can do what we had. But hey, just because we had the best doesn't mean we can stay afloat.
Can we say that I am bitter?
This market is red hot? Red hot my a*s.
My god, have we nothing better to write about than Microsoft? Looking on the front page, I see FOUR stories about Microsoft. There's gotta be something more newsworthy, even for slashdot this is bad.
"I also fear hypocrites who worry about MS being "big brother" while happily using Frontpage to create their home page."
/. :-)
...)
nice to see some realism overhere @
(ps. he *really* uses frontpage to create his webpage, amazing
from the UK Sunday The Observer can be found here
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
This is probably a non-story. There's a $250 million poisoned chalice attached to buying ITV Digital as a going concern, let alone the fact that it makes a loss ever second it's on air. That's not pocket change, even for Microsoft, and bearing in mind their internal beaurocracy, they probably won't be able to commit to taking it on in time to buy the business outright.
Chances are, nobody else will either, and the company will fold, default on its debts, and then have its assets (i.e. its license and equipment) bought by a new bidder. Most likely (wait for it) is the current owners, who are chuckling all the way to the bank at the thought of being able to effectively just wipe all the debts and start clean. Microsoft doesn't like to get involved in bidding; they like deals to be done behind closed doors and controlled entirely by then. Actually bidding on an open market would be... unseemly.
I think we can sleep easy. But then, I'm already a UK Telewest customer, and Microsoft's already got their finger in that pie, so I may be suffering the first signs of Infestation. Make up your own minds. ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The switch is only to digital terrestrial, and the target for 2010 is that all TVs have digital capability, so that analogue terrestrial services can be turned off. There is no obligation to subscribe to a digital service such as ntl, Sky or ITV Digital.
Digital terrestrial includes many new non-analogue including BBC3 and BBC4.
And as others have pointed out, ITV Digital's service is very poor. Microsoft will face a challenge bringing it up to scratch. Having said that, if any company can transform ITV Digital, it's Microsoft.
if microsoft own a lot of ntl/telewest, and they take the football rights contract, it may influence more people to go with the cable operators.
probably not enough demand for 1st division to convince people to switch over from rupert murdoch's stranglehold, but its another(?) exclusive on TW/NTL's list
See http://www.pacefreetoview.co.uk/
MS are welcome to ITV Digital!
Rumour has it, that Microsoft wants to get their hands on TV's existing blue screen technology - ie where something simple is superimposed onto something flash to make it _look_ like something really good is going on...
can you imagine on your tv this?
'windows needs to restart your tv to let you watch
eastenders.'
there will be a war where ms push teletext at you
with activex vulns and speak of skytext as like they do with unix,
for some stupid reason there will be IIS on set top boxes, a whole new code red variant will be able to make you watch home and away while it ddos's
I just like the Monkey Testcard! :-)
Well, we had ITV Digital vs. Sky Digital, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International. It was never a remotely equal battle. In fact MS is probably one of the few companies big enough to take on Murdoch. And just think - two vast cross-media companies, each with billions of pounds to spend, slugging it out in cut-throat competition for market share. Sounds like heaven for the happy consumer caught in the crossfire. As long as one of the companies doesn't actually win, of course.
I'm no MS fan (by a long shot), but this seems like smart business to me, by moving into other industries they're not wholly dependent on software. They're already in entertainment, tried digital communications (failed satellite venture) and just introduced a gaming device (X-Box). They know they can do entertainment (look at everything they've contributed to /. stories! ;) ), so why not expand on that?
I'm not saying they may not try to manipulate content or use another tactic, but it seems to make business sense from their past investments...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
I doubt the mobile phone companies will be interested though since they have been stuck with a rather large bill for the 3G licenses which no customers seem intested in using.
It's not that we're not interested, it's just that there's nothing for us to buy yet! I think GPRS is the only new technology that's appeared since that auction, and that's really not what 3G is about.
According to Nokia:
* 3G is being on a train and watching clips from your favorite soap
* 3G is being out and sending images back to headquarters
* 3G is using your phone to take holiday pictures to instantly send to friends at home
* 3G is using your phone for a videoconference in a taxi
I think we'd best wait until there's a product that actually does this before declaring that customers aren't interested in the technology!
ITV Digital has about 1% of the market with maybe 1 million subscribers out of 60 million people in the UK and is in debt to the football association to the tune of a couple of hundred million dollars. Their set top technology has been comprehensively cracked and cracked cards are easily available.
Not necessarily a good business to be in.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
This should suit Microsoft fine, for most companys, 'digital' means "we can get away with bad compression quality, buggy software, controlling what the user can do, and over-pricing, and if anyone says our service is crap we just hype it up because its digital."
But, if Bill Gates appears in an advert were Monkey takes the piss out of him, then i might get Microsoft digital (but a hacked version, im not paying for that shit)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Just think, a world without all the dull dull dull football matches on TV. The more football clubs going bust, the better.
In fact. it'd be good if Sky bought all the football matches forever then we wouldn't have to have it on every channel every saturday.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
This is it's last chance !
Sign here before it dies !
I am getting very confused by Microsoft's strategies. Although they are fighting off in being seperated for being a monopoly, they keep acting blatantly as one! Are they trying to make Microsoft as big as possible before it's split, or giving the thumb to the states that are prosecuting it?
They're just envious of the Media|Highway software, Gate's is said to
be stunned that another company is capable of producing worse software than
MS, he's report to have said "we must do everything to eliminate this
serious competition".
They already own about 25% of the two UK cable providers.
I saw Granada was attached to ITV there somehow - I'm not sure of the relationship there. Will we still get Coronation Street? Will it be interrupted? :(
creation science book
it would be quite cool though if the x-box could "intergrate" somehow wityh this microsoft TV :) use it like some kind of TEVO copy
There are four Microsoft Articles on the frontpage right now.
Slashdot
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. And Everything Microsoft Does. EVERYTHING.
Mod me down, fine with me, it's my real karma I try to keep up.
let us all understand the thinking behinf microsofts move here. bill gate MAY have to defend his hidious creation against the wigs in DC and, as we all know, he has no case and is as good as flaimbait. BUT! microsoft is and has always been slimey. if microsoft points out the fact that with the (failing) X box, MSNBC, and itv they have infact become an entertainment company and is mearly a big name for a bunch of little companys. its a lie, its slimly, its... right up bill's alley if you ask me. i can just hear the new M$ slogan, "diversify and you wont fry!'
Careful what you say around me.. I will assume you mean it.
There's more to life than bitterness at people who manage to get out for some exercise every once in a while, you know.
... was, and still is, collecting subscriptions in the USA.
That's pretty much what I've been looking for.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Those who have satellite and/or cable forget that there are still many, many people in the UK who don't
It's more than a lot of people think - now 40% of all UK homes have digital TV (source: ITC)... not bad for a technology thats only about 3-4 years old.
In England, there really is a monopoly on TV.
The BBC, the state-owned station, collects a tax on ANYONE using a colour TV. That cost is higher for digital TV.
The BBC has said they have systems to detect RF emmissions from PAL sets, so they drive down streets, checking houses without TV licences to see if they have a set. With such a monopoly in place, many Brits don't want to pay for something else. Would you buy a satellite dish if you had to keep paying for cable?
The UK has already lost one satellite company, and I don't see MSFT really able to save this one.
-twb
Right - the UK government wants to switch off all the analogue broadcasting by 2010 and yet terrestrial digital broadcasting has less than 2 million subscribers? Don't make me laugh. They only want to do this to be able to auction the spectrum for more billions from greedy speculators. But look what happened to the last lot to bid megabucks for spectrum - Vodafone has its stock price lose more in one day than any company in history last week, BT nearly goes bust - and NOBODY is using GPRS a year after the auction. The phone companies will remember this experience with gritted teeth.
The politicians will switch off the analogue in 2010 just after the Palace of Westminster has been buzzed by flying pigs, navigating by the light of a blue moon!
2010 is *not* going to happen.
An STB costs £100 a throw. My video is analogue, I have 3 analogue TVs. My WinTV card is analogue. My Tivo is analogue.
Before this switchover is even going to be remotely realistic then STBs have to be down to about £10 or less. All new videos and TVs have to be equipped with digital. Conversion of existing sets must be available at a minimal cost.
None of this is happening. The adoption of digital won't realistically even *start* until this is true. It is currently impossible to by a 14" portable digital set. The smallest digital TV available is a 28" widescreen and it weighs in at £700. OK for rich ubergeeks, but for the other 99% of the population conversion isn't practical.
My mother saw the pace STB on breakfast TV, and since she had some money spare decided to get one. Looked at it, phoned me in confusion, then sent it back. It only supports SCART input (which she can't use)... great f*cking move guys...
ITV Digital shot themselves in the foot by paying nearly £400 million for the television rights for the three divisions of the Football League (lots of people said at the time it was a ridiculous price).
The number one reason for Murdoch's success with Sky was that he managed to get rights for the Premiership football, which meant anyone who wanted to watch the matches (which is a lot of people in the UK) had to get Sky.
ITV tried the same trick with the Football League rights but somehow didn't understand that very few people would subscribe just to be able to watch Football League matches.
Premiership football has (inter)national appeal, people all over the country (and indeed the World) will watch it because it is one of the top three domestic leagues in the World (along with the La Liga in Spain and Serie A in Italy), the quality is good and many of the World's top players play in the Premiership. In contrast, the lower levels of football have only regional appeal. When Grimsby play Gillingham the only people interested are those in Grimsby and Gillingham (and many of these will actually go to the game rather than watching it on TV) the rest of the country doesn't care.
However, I think (though I may be wrong) that the rights have already reverted back to the Football League so that they can resell them to the highest bidder (which is bound to be much lower than the original deal), so Microsoft acquiring ITV Digital would not necessarily mean Microsoft acquiring the broadcasting rights for the Football League.
Suck figs.
The money is owed to the Football League (72 professional clubs), not the Football Association (national governing body for the sport).
Suck figs.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
NO, he probably mistyped 'trauma', you penis dribble.
I just think they're going across the pond 'cause someone told Bill the Dept. of Justice doesn't have jurisdiction in the UK.
i am on satelite tv so i am already digital and even without the
help of the evil empire.
Euuhhh..whats this got to do with digital tv?
ps. is the kde or gnome newsticker not the same?
Interestingly it was a Murdoch TV funded outfit in Israel that cracked the Canal+ and ITV digital stb.
When questioned a Murdoch spokeman said that is served them right to have such lousy protection!
I think the Dirty Digger will eat Billyboy for breakfast if he dips his toe in the shark pond.
David
Even if you accept that extrapolation, and there's countless good reasons for not doing so (and yes, I'll post on that if you like), geology's findings are hostile to any reasonable (or even unreasonable) approximation of a pre-biotic environment in which chemical evolution could possibly operate. So you must invoke Hoyle and Wickramasingh's aliens - or some similar mechanism - in order to get biological evolution even a chance at starting.
And I leave you with a qute from no less than Francis Crick:
Note that Francis hasn't addressed things like the onservation that most amino-amino bonds are not peptide. Oh, well. Is Francis Crick a Creationist?
Just in case the scale eludes you, the universe has about 10E81 atoms in it, and has existed (in theory) for roughly 10E17 seconds. If you combined every atom in the universe with every other atom, every second, you'd still be shy roughly 10E150 universe lifetimes of enough time to get even odds.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Basically terestrial TV is very expensive to keep hoing. It would in fact be cheaper to give everybody in the UK a free digiTV box than to keep the old TV service running...
Except ITV Digital is terestrial. Its just Digital Terestrial. I think you meant analogue.
This seems to be your favourite strawman.
I don't see why you expect God to make a special and unprovoked exception in, for example, whether your car starts on a given day or not. Cars have run for very long distances without petrol in response to prayer, but I don't expect that this is an experiment which would work very well for someone in your frame of mind.
Before we look for some realistic answers for you, let's phrase your response after the same pattern, but from an evolutionary perspective - just to see how it looks.
Chance done it. Who can explain chance?
It had to be chance because no other forces are at work, we excluded them by definition. Who needs falsifiable?
We're all going to die.
...or, on a slightly more serious note...
It's mostly missing, but we think chance done it, otherwise we risk having to submit to an external authority, and we wouldn't like that
Since we can be bent to fit any shape, twisted to explain anything - in the absence of observation - we can explain it away even if we can't be falsified
Completely random formation of characteristics, little stability of characteristics, little if any speciation, gobs of transitional forms in the fossil record... oops.
Now a more realistic Creationist perspective (Creationism and Materialism aren't the only possible perspectives):
The earth was created de novo, ex nihilo, kiloyears ago, and then totally inundated some centuries later.
Continents have not had time to wear down, rivers have not had time to cut long beds or deposit more than several thousand annual layers of silt, helium, salt and other environmental substances have not had time to reach equilibrium. If they have, the theory is false.
Large numbers of well speciated fossils will be found within alluvial and volcanic rock, usually buried with signs of great violence and/or speed. Alluvial rock layers will often be found to be thin, relatively homogeneous, and widespread. Layers will follow a general order which varies gradually with location, but occasionally will be found disordered, even reversed. Occasional rock formations will be hairpinned. Strata will occasionally exhibit Z-shaped seams. Etc ad nauseum...
Nick off, you're scaring the crows...
BTW, I think /. character-per-line counting sucks, not to mention that you can fool it, kinda, and that it leads to padding, rather than to concise, direct reasoning and expression. The only reason for this paragraph's existence is to bump that CPL figure up past 35 from about 24. Waffle, waffle, waffle. The internet regards all blockages (such as censorship and pointless rules for posting comments) as errors and routes around them, don't'cha know? So if /. will kindly nudge the limt down to about 20, everyone can get on with their lives with no loss of functionality to this accursed weblog. Type, type, type, yawn, yawn, yawn, 35.7 and counting, type type type type type type type type yadda yadda yadda drone drone drone drone waffle waffle jaw jaw rabbit on gibber gibber. 37.6 blah blah blah and on and on and on, sigh. 38.0 blah blah blah and on and on and on, blah blah blah and on and on and on some more. Steadily the annoying counter is nudged upwards. Nudge, nudge, push I think I'll switch to kuro5hin now. Yay, we topped 40.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
What is MSNBC if not a form of TV?
Graham
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Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Totally agree. The thing is that until ~10 years ago we had three channels to watch. An only with the advent of digital TV ~2 years ago did we get the plethora of channels we have now. I'm from the I have 4 channels of good telly why do I need 500 channels of cr*p camp?
The big digital switch won't happen for many years - that arbritrary date is a result of government think tanks that think they can see the future.
As for M$, I haven't read the article (had the Sat. Guardian which is a long enough read!) but you've got to wonder how much truth there is and is the offer coming from M$ Redmond or M$ UK. I find it had to see Redmond attempting it's media take out with "Monkey" Digital, and I don't see
M$ UK having the business or the strategic power to handle it,
my 2 pence,
Spudgun
There will be third choice rolling out nationally sometime next year. This project (www.kitv.co.uk), true Interactive DTV is
currently only available in Kingston up Hull. It will be available nationally from some time next summer.
It's already offer more services (DTV,VOD,Internet,Email, Fax Bridge) than the established players. Ultimately it will support any Service available over IP.
ITV Digital is currently in administration, meaning the administrators (Deloitte and Touche) can sell the business without its debts.
Here's the .sig file from their outgoing mail:
ITV Digital plc, 346 Queenstown Rd, London SW8 4DG. Reg No. 3302715: In administration. Joint Administrators N.J. Dargan & N.G. Edwards The Joint Administrators act as agents of the companies and contract without personal liability.Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's all moronic tedious crap that's about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.