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Motorola Acquires IPTV Embedded Linux Developer
segphault writes "Ars Technica is covering Motorola's acquisition of Kreatel, a European company that designs Linux-based Internet Television Protocol (IPTV) technologies, including a set-top box powered by embedded Linux." From the article: "I'm not big on television (I generally prefer to wait for the shows I like to be released on DVD), but the sheer extensibility of Linux-based IPTV technologies is more than enough to capture my imagination. If provided with a good on-demand service that lets me watch what I want, when I want to watch it, I would definitely be interested. As tantalizing as this Kreatel stuff is, it appears as though the SDK isn't available to average consumers yet. I hope that Motorola has the sense to realize that a devoted fan base of eager Linux device junkies will be a good thing for the platform."
What a turn around this man has done with Motorola. There are an awful lot of great people at Motorola, and finally they have a CEO who actually listens to what they say.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I'm not sure how large that 'devoted fan base' is in the grand scheme of things, but the concept of true on-demand content delivery has proven itself time and time again. Tivo et al are but the first step in this process. This sounds like a truely promising step in removing the stream of BS from television and provide an avenue around the 'strategized marketecture' that is increasingly commonplace in mass media. Most of us would gladly pay for programming w/o the coupled advertisements, and I hope they can work that into their business model.
Blog: http://richardrandomrants.blogspot.com/
A few months ago Cisco bought Scientific Atlanta and now Motorola buys Kreatel (it makes sense, although Forbes said Motorola still had an advantage over Cisco).
There's few independent players left in the STB arena. I wonder how long until somebody buys Amino, I3Micro or FedTec.
For decades, advertising firms and the companies they represent have held sway over the content of television. Not a few good shows haven't arisen despite the reigns of commercial liability, but if broadcasting companies really want to expand their markets, they need consumer demand in complete control without advertisements. Too many times has a well written program been cast off because they couldn't find companies willing to advertise on the show because of controversiality or because they didn't have a large portion of one demographic (You know, when all those big companies removed their advertisements from "Ellen" is one example that comes to mind). Perhaps a more massive switch to complete on demand viewing could change that.
Corporations might even be forced to put more money into product developement that insipid, mass advertising campaigns.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Oh man, I can't believe it. I know when I go to Consumer Electronics Store, all I hear are the salespeople and customers discussing whether the SDK is available.
-bugg
Disclaimer: I work at (what used to be) one of the original IPTV middleware companies.
Having seen some Kreatel hardware, I can say that it's pretty cool, but certainly not unique. Amino makes the smallest Linux-based IPTV set-top box that I have ever seen. Their AmiNET110 is incredibly small. IIRC the only chip inside is an IBM system-on-a-chip (405GP, for those who care); not much else.
Anyway, the Kreatel hardware I've dealt with is huge in comparison. Both very cool products.
If somebody would actualy know something about area of IPTV, one would know that we already have a nubumber of Linux based STBs. Amino being the most successful ones. Oh, I don't know... We have been deploying them from the start of 2004, when most of the people didn't even know what IPTV should mean. Swisscom on the other hand started testing Microsoft OS (Windows MCE) based STBs at the same time... and the still don't work properly. And those units cost more than ten times the cost of Amino 103 unit... BTW: Windows MCE is complete Windows XP with couple of applications. With W-MCE only SW licence without HW costs $200, with at least $200 for HW to run the beast. Amino on the other hand "Just works", costs in $30 a piece if you order in bulk. Thats SW and HW together!
Anyway, I know it's Slashdot, but not checking the facts is so 20th century journalism...
To boldly invent more hot water.
We ( http://www.logici.com/ ) use it for our STBs, edge video router, VOD server, STB management system... pretty much everything in the chain that delivers IPTV video from the headend to the viewer. We use XML and XUL wrappered by plain HTML and javascript, so clients have the ability to customize the UI, and the UI itself is (for all intent purposes) 'Video/EPG AJAX'. I've worked on a lot of systems in the last 10 years that deliver IPTV video. The nimbleness of this particular approach blows all the others out of the water. Where 'legacy' systems required a team of developers and months of time to get a new 'version' out for a customer, this can be done by one person adept at gimp/photoshop and javascript/html.
"Kreatel, a European company"
...
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It's Swedish. They are based in Linköping, the same city that the Swedish figherplanes JAS 39 Griffin are from. I3Micro is also Swedish (based in Stockholm).