Hong Kong Plans to Sell 45%
June 2008
Hong Kong’s PCCW said it plans to merge its Telecom, media and IT businesses into a holding company and sell about 45% of it to investors. The new company will be called HKT Group Holdings Ltd. According to media reports, the deal would let PCCW acquire overseas operations and reduce its overall tax burden.
Source: MRG, Inc., June 2008 IPTV Bulletin
Sony Broadband Connectivity: Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary
June 2008
Recently Sony made an announcement to put broadband connectors on many of its major consumer devices in order to make it easier for these devices to communicate with each other, and to download (and view) compelling video content. For example, it wants to add an Internet connection to its Bravia LCD TVs in the US by autumn, according to the Wall Street Journal. Doing this will enable Sony to download some new movies directly to the TV before the DVD release, such as the new movie “Hancock” from Sony Pictures. Older releases are not going to be released in the same “window” because of existing restrictions with the stakeholders (actors, writers, musicians, etc).
This is significant because other TV manufacturers, (e.g. Matsushita, HP, Phillips and Samsung) also have announced similar plans; and because companies like Apple, Roku/Netflix, VUDU, and even Blockbuster have all announced similar standalone boxes that download and store both HD and SD video content. In fact, Apple is now downloading some recently released HD mainstream movies.
We believe recently-released HD movies will be the main driver of the broadband VOD business, so that people will no longer need to buy an extra Blu-ray HD player to see recently released HD movies. But for people who want the highest quality surroundsound with their HD movies, Blu-ray will still fill a niche.
Sony is, therefore, using the BB strategy to prop up its Blu-ray initiative. In our opinion, because of the proliferation of HD download-and-store (Web-to-TV) products in North America, Blu-ray sales will remain high-end niche devices while the more convenient Web-to-TV devices will gain more of the mainstream HD movie markets for TV consumption of HD movies.
{Note: analyst comments are italicized}
Source: MRG, Inc., June 2008 IPTV Bulletin
Swisscom Getting Past Start-Up Troubles
June 2008
It seems that Swiss IPTV provider Swisscom is getting over its growing pains and Bluewin is on the fast track to gaining new customers and competing strongly against Switzerland’s Cable Providers. Currently, Bluewin TV now has 70,000 subscribers and is growing at about 2,000 customers per week.
The company has come a long way from just a few years ago, when it was faced with vendor issues and other delays. Back in 2006, Swisscom launched its IPTV service based on the Microsoft middleware and within a few weeks it received 20,000 orders. However, lots of technical issues, (many related to conversion of the copper to VDSL) forced the company to stop active marketing until the problems were resolved. The delay was seen as a bad sign for Swisscom, for Microsoft’s IPTV solution and for the IPTV industry in general.
After Swisscom fixed its problems, it re-launched the service in January 2008 offering VOD and some PPV content. Because Switzerland is multilingual and bordered by multiple European companies, Swisscom offers its TV packages in French, German and Italian. As part of its growth, Swisscom is now pushing out new content, including HD channels and interactive features like allowing customers to program their DVRs from their mobile phones or PCs.
Source: MRG, Inc., June 2008 IPTV Bulletin
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