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Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco’s Video & Collaboration Group, predicts that Internet TVs and other consumer IP devices will be powerful and ubiquitous enough within about 10 years to receive any pay-TV service directly – eliminating the need for service providers to deploy set-top boxes.
The hardware side of the equation is becoming a commodity, he said in an interview at the Cisco campus, and the company’s strategy from here on out is to be “set-top agnostic.”
The increasingly software-based nature of TV services was a primary driver behind Cisco’s $5 billion purchase of NDS, according to De Beer. Until that ‘set-top-boxless’ future happens, STBs and DVRs will remain a key piece of business for Cisco, he said.
“We are not going to leave our customers in the lurch,” De Beer said. “We are not going to de-emphasise set-tops… But what we are going to do is work hard to make sure our software works across any platform.”
“If we were only playing in set-tops,” De Beer summarised, the shift toward software pay-TV clients “would be a problem.”
Via Advanced Television
The hardware side of the equation is becoming a commodity, he said in an interview at the Cisco campus, and the company’s strategy from here on out is to be “set-top agnostic.”
The increasingly software-based nature of TV services was a primary driver behind Cisco’s $5 billion purchase of NDS, according to De Beer. Until that ‘set-top-boxless’ future happens, STBs and DVRs will remain a key piece of business for Cisco, he said.
“We are not going to leave our customers in the lurch,” De Beer said. “We are not going to de-emphasise set-tops… But what we are going to do is work hard to make sure our software works across any platform.”
“If we were only playing in set-tops,” De Beer summarised, the shift toward software pay-TV clients “would be a problem.”
Via Advanced Television
