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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. "
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.
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.