Google is working with Intel, Sony and Logitech on Google TV, a project to bring online content to the TV, according to a report from the New York Times. Google will use Android or Chrome as an operating system, the Intel Atom processor, Sony's expertise with TVs and a remote control from Logitech. Google has reportedly already developed a prototype set-top box, but building the technology into TVs is also possible. The result would give consumers easy access on the TV screen to services such as YouTube, Picasa, Twitter and Hulu. A test is apparently underway with satellite TV group Dish in the US.
The move into the TV market is a logical, and even unavoidable, step for Google. The company is already market leader on the web, and has numerous mobile offerings to its name (the Android OS, Nexus One handset, a netbook running Chrome on the way, the takeover of AdMob). It's an obvious choice to also explore the third screen, the TV, as Google's next challenge.
The parties involved with Google TV are already active in the over-the-top world. Google started two years ago with Google TV Ads, for auctioning advertising time, for which Dish is a partner. The rumours of an Android set-top box have been circulating since late 2007, and Intel has said it wants to grow on the TV market, now it's already conquered the PC sector. Intel has developed a processor range, of which the CE3100 is the first product. These processors are powerful enough to handle broadcast and web content simultaneously. Intel has also developed widgets with partners such as Yahoo! and Metrological, for giving quick access to the web services via the remote control. The developer designs the widgets as well as the underlying content deals. Finally Sony is already in the market with web-enabled TVs and media players, the predecessors of the OTT boxes currently in development by companies such as Metrological.
The competition is also busy with OTT plans. There are too many to name them all, but it's clearthe telecom sector is grappling with both TV and OTT. The investments in developing a TV delivery infrastructure (for example KPN: buying Digitenne and rolling out a DTT network, rolling out an IPTV platform, network investments in ADSL2+, VDSL and FTTH) are barely finished, and then all of the sudden the TV content enters the home easily over a broadband connection! And then it's even combined with web content and delivered with no role for the operator, as any handy person can connect a box like Metrological's Yuixx on his own. It will still be some time before the consumer abandons traditional broadcast content, but whoever's satisfied with specialised web content and catch-up TV sites can cancel now his TV subscription.
In short, the telecoms sector will look wearily upon the new Google plans. Will the OTT player again corner the market, as it has in the fixed internet realm (and possibly with the mobile internet too), reducing operator networks to 'dumb pipes'? Or is there a chance for operators to cooperate (see our research brief 'OTT: distribution as a scenario for operators'). Google's very limited success on the handset market, where it has run into problems distributing the Nexus One, suggests that not all hope is lost for operators.
