Intel has stopped producing processors for digital TVs, although it will continue to supply set-top box manufacturers, both IPTV as well as cable. The company will now focus on the tablet and smartphone market. Intel did see the connected TV market as a potential source of growth, but apparently, it was not able to make much of an impression there. Tablets and smartphones also require much more attention. A market becomes interesting for Intel only when it can deliver high volumes.
So how will this decision impact the connected TV market? Let us first look where Intel sends its wares. It's an impressive list:
- IPTV: Iliad (the Freebox made by Iliad), Telecom Italia (the Cubovision made by Amino), Vodafone Iceland (also Amino), Bouygues (OneBox, made by Samsung);
- Cable/satellite: Liberty Global (Horizon, made by Samsung), Comcast (Xcalibur, made by Pace), Dish (an EchoStar box with Google TV) and boxes from AirTies and Joysee;
- Stand-alone media streamers/set-top boxes: Amino (the Freedom), Reycom (Reycom Entertainment Center), Technicolor (MediaEncore), Logitech (the Revue, with Google TV software), D-Link (the Boxee Box) and the Yuixx-box of Metrological and Conceptronics;
- Televisies: Philips (Net TV), Sony (Internet TV Powered by Google TV).
Among all these parties, only Philips and Sony will take a direct hit by Intel’s stop on connected TVs. As stated earlier, some parties will still get their SoCs (system-on-a-chip) but with a minimum of technical support. Philips and Sony could, because of this, start falling behind parties like Panasonic, LG, Samsung and Sharp, which use other processors. Switching to another SoC could cause months of delay, the time for the middleware gets adapted to a new platform.
There could also be winners here. When Intel leaves a market, competition soon fills the gap. That’s good news for parties such as ARM, Broadcom, Trident, and Sigma, amongst others. Rumours have been swirling quite a while, that Samsung and Google were stepping over to ARM. The companies will need to make sure that whoever replaces Intel can also provide a powerful processor, one which could, for example, take on different streams simultaneously.
