Reality bites: Google replaces Intel with Marvell for Google TV

Earlier today, The Wall Street Journal reported that Marvell has replaced Intel as the lead chipset supplier for Google TV. The deal is non-exclusive, but the bigger news is that Google has replaced Intel's X86 architecture with ARM, which is supported by Broadcom, nVidia, Samsung and Texas Instruments, along with Marvell and others. When the first Google TV devices were released by Logitech and Sony, it was clear that they were far too expensive for the market; for example, while Apple was selling Apple TV for $99 (U.S.) and Roku's set-top boxes were priced at $99 or less, the Logitech Revue was launched at $399. In order for Sony and Logitech to be competitive, they had to drastically cut prices and, in Logitech's case, take huge losses. (Logitech subsequently abandoned Google TV.)

By switching from the Intel architecture to ARM, Google TV's licensees will gain a less-expensive, lower-power platform that can compete with set-top boxes from Apple, Roku and others on both price and performance. They'll also get a choice of multiple processor vendors; for example, even though Marvell is the lead partner, there's nothing keeping Samsung from using its own ARM-based processors in its HDTVs, Blu-Ray players and set-top boxes.

In short, this is the move that Google should have made from the beginning. With lower-priced set-top boxes, the ability to run apps and an operating system based on a more modern version of Android, Google TV 2.0 should be significantly more successful than the original version. At the very least, it has a chance for survival, instead of being "dead on arrival".

Roku signs Best Buy to sell its video players

Engadget is reporting that Roku has signed Best Buy to carry the Roku XD, its mid-priced model ($79.99 U.S.), in its stores. RadioShack will also carry the same model. Frys Electronics will carry the XD and more expensive XD|S model, and BJ's Wholesale Club will carry the XD|S. At the same time, Netgear has announced that it's discontinuing its rebranded version of Roku's player.

Roku's expansion into brick & mortar retail channels will place the brand on stronger competitive footing vs. Apple TV and Google TV, although getting its product into retail is only the first step in building consumer demand for the Roku brand. Apple TV holds a big branding advantage over Roku, and Google TV is considerably more functional. However, the XD is $20 less than Apple TV and around $200 cheaper than Logitech's Revue Google TV set-top box, so price-sensitive customers may go for the Roku, especially if store salespeople can demonstrate it effectively.

Logitech halts manufacturing of its Google TV-based Revue: The question is, will it ever resume?

This one slipped past me on Christmas Eve, but DigiTimes reported that Logitech has told the manufacturer of the Google TV-based Revue, Gigabyte, to halt manufacturing until the beginning of February, 2011 at the earliest. Google has asked its partners not to show new Google TV devices at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, because it's working on improved software.

Update, 27 December: In response to the DigiTimes article, Logitech issued a very nuanced statement to Barron's, a daily financial newspaper owned by the Wall Street Journal. Logitech said that Google did not ask the company to suspend its shipments of the Revue. It says that it is continuing to ship "products" to its customers (although the statement doesn't name the Revue as one of the products), and that it doesn't comment on specific production plans for any of its products. In other words, Logitech doesn't deny the DigiTimes report, nor does it confirm that it's specifically fulfilling new orders of the Revue to anyone.

I anticipated all of this when Google TV was first demonstrated. It was clearly rushed to market, with little to no coordination with other product teams within Google, no third-party apps and little third-party content. The question now is, even if Google improves the Google TV software platform, will Logitech restart production, and will the other companies (including Toshiba, LG Electronics, Sharp and Vizio) that were working on Google TV products follow through with their plans?

Logitech's Google TV set-top-box price and availability date announced

According to Engadget, Logitech has announced that its Google TV set-top box, the Revue, will be priced at $299 in the U.S. and will ship on September 29th. Dish Network subscribers can purchase a single Revue at a discounted price of $179. My suspicion is that Logitech is going to have a very tough time of it this holiday season.

The Revue was clearly designed to be competitive with the last-generation Apple TV, but the new version, which will be shipping at about the same time, will be priced at $99. Roku's current-generation set-top boxes run from $59.99 to $99.99, although they have new-generation models in the pipeline that may be more expensive. Boxee's Boxee Box by D-Link has a $229.99 list price, but Amazon has it available for pre-order at $199.99.

Looking at the Logitech Revue's price, I don't see how it competes in the current environment. By basing its architecture on Intel, Google automatically made its partners vulnerable to price competition from companies using ARM processors, and that's exactly what's happening. If the price point for a viable add-on set-top box drops to $199 or less (and especially if it drops to $99), I don't see how Google TV set-top boxes will be able to compete without subsidies.

Google TV: Not ready for prime time?

As I write this, the self-congratulatory interviewing of Google's launch partners for Google TV is still going on at the I/O Conference, but the important details of Google TV are now public. First, the details that have leaked over the last month or so are generally true:

• Google TV will be based on Android (Version 2.1, not 2.2, even though the first products won't ship until this fall) and Chrome.
  
• Google has been working with Dish Network for some time, and Google TV will be integrated with Dish's DVRs.
  
• Google's hardware partners are Intel (providing Atom CPUs and chip sets), Sony (providing Internet-enabled HDTVs and a Google TV-compatible Blu-Ray player) and Logitech (with a forthcoming set-top box).
  
• The first distribution partner will be Best Buy.
  
• Amazon and Netflix have agreed to make their sites and content available to Google TV (no big deal, because both companies have policies of making their video content available virtually everywhere).

Some of the details of Google TV:

• It brings the Google search engine to TV, where users can search for content, either from their video service provider (cable, satellite or IPTV) or on the web, using a "Quick Search" bar like Chrome.
  
• It has its own "home page" that can be used for keeping track of favorite series and applications.
  
• It supports (and relies heavily upon) Flash Video for displaying web video.
  
• Google TV-enabled devices will connect to conventional set-top boxes via HDMI and IR Blaster remote controls, which is what allows Google TV devices to display both web and service provider video content.
  
• If conventional set-top box vendors implement Google's control protocol, Google TV devices can serve as their Interactive Program Guides, request future shows to be recorded on their DVRs, and perform other functions.
  
• Google TV can create a home page for a television series "on the fly", linking to available episodes from cable, satellite and IPTV providers, as well as on-demand episodes available on the web from various sources.
  
• Live video can be overlayed on web content in a small picture-in-picture window; this is useful for viewing sports game stats while watching a game in real time, or for doing IMDB lookups while watching a television show or movie.
  
• Since the key user interface for Google TV is Chrome, users can search for and access music, images and other content along with video.
  
• Android applications that don't require smartphone functionality will work on Google TV; applications can also be written to take advantage of Google TV's APIs (one application demonstrated could take closed captions and translate them from English to another language for non-English speaking viewers.)

Those are the positive bullet points. Here's why I think that Google "pulled the trigger" on Google TV too soon:

• Google's partners plan to start shipping and selling compatible hardware this Fall in time for the 2010 Christmas season, but the Android Marketplace, Google TV SDKs and Web APIs needed to develop new applications, integrate other devices with Google TVs and take full advantage of the web platform won't be released until early 2011. The entire platform should be available as open source in Summer 2011. In short, that means that the only source for optimized content and applications for at least six months will be Google, Sony, Logitech and a handful of chosen partners who get early access to the platform. 
• Google has published a list of recommendations for how web video providers can customize their content for Google TV. Much of it is common sense, but when it comes to formats and codecs, Google recommends Flash Video using H.264 1080i. There's no mention of WebM in the recommendations, and it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the Google TV announcement. It sounds like the Google TV and WebM teams haven't been talking to each other.
  
• The standard video I/O for Google TV-enabled devices will be HDMI. If your HDTV is an older model without HDMI, or your set-top box uses component video rather than HDMI, you're out of luck.
  
• Much of Google TV's ability to interact with service providers' set-top boxes depends on those vendors' (and their service provider customers') support of Google's IP control protocol. Today, only Dish Networks/Echostar supports the protocol. Unless Google TV becomes wildly popular, Dish's competitors aren't going to adopt Google's technology.
  
• Most of the power of Google TV requires a full keyboard for doing searches. In fact, they never even demonstrated an on-screen keyboard. It's anyone's guess as to how eagerly consumers will adopt using a full keyboard rather than a conventional television remote.
  
• One of the things that was so impressive about the WebM announcement yesterday was the breadth of industry support for the format--hardware, software and services. Google has been unable to get anyone else beyond the hardware partners first rumored months ago to sign onto Google TV. Whether that's due to the cost of Intel's hardware platform, Sony's "my way or the highway" approach to collaboration with partners, or other factors, is still a matter of speculation, but it's been widely reported that both Samsung and Panasonic were approached to join the consortium and refused.
  
• Google TV will still be subject to the policies of web video providers. Google referenced and showed a number of Fox television shows; they even showed a home page for the series "House" that included icons for getting old episodes from Hulu. Yet, they studiously avoided going to the Hulu website, instead retrieving the episodes from Amazon. Hulu prohibits viewing its content on television sets and goes out of its way to block systems like Google TV that try to do so. It's likely that the cable operators will also block their sites from Google TV.

Google demonstrated a lot of nice capabilities, and I certainly don't want to take anything away from that. A lot of thought has gone into Google TV. However, I think that they would have been better off to have called this a technology preview, rather than try to rush product into the market for Christmas 2010. By waiting, they would have had more time to sign up hardware partners, to bring additional CPU and chipset vendors on board with lower-cost and lower-power platforms, and to enable Google's developer partners to go to market with applications and content at the same time that the platform first reaches customers' homes. And, they could have baked WebM into the architecture as an essential component.

My feeling is that this could turn out much like Google Wave: By the time it actually gets released for general consumption and is fully usable, most people will have lost interest.

You're only as good as your partners

According to the New York Times, Google has partnered with Intel, Sony and Logitech to port Android and a set of Internet-oriented applications to set-top boxes, HDTVs and other devices. Google is also said to be working with Dish Network to implement Android and similar applications in Dish's satellite receivers.

In any kind of industry consortium, you're only as good as your partners. Logitech, which is being called on to provide peripherals including a remote control, is an excellent choice, although their inclusion in the consortium seems like overkill, given that many companies can do remote controls well. The quality of the partners goes down from there:

• Intel has a terrible track record with consumer electronics; it repeatedly announces industry initiatives and partnerships, but very little comes from them, because Intel's chips are both overkill and overpriced for most consumer electronics applications.
• Sony has lost its market leadership in consumer electronics. The company's engineers strive to lock customers into Sony technologies, and that has made the company an also-ran in many markets. The company's fierce unwillingness to compromise on Blu-Ray delayed the entire consumer electronics industry from launching the technology for more than a year, and its arrogant overpricing and over-complication of the Playstation 3 allowed Nintendo and Microsoft to dominate the console market until very recently.
• Dish is a weak #2 in the U.S. satellite television market, and its repeated court losses against TiVo mean that the company may not remain a viable satellite receiver or set-top box manufacturer.

I would feel a lot more comfortable about this effort if Google had managed to attract a couple of ARM licensees and additional consumer electronics manufacturers such as Samsung and Panasonic. (Signing up Samsung would have gotten them both the ARM processors and additional consumer electronics clout.) Google may be planning to add more companies to the consortium, but if this is all they get, I don't see Google TV gaining much market traction.