From: Ramon Chen
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 1:40 PM
To: *ALL MetaTV
Subject: Capt. Two Days Later – Kagan iTV interactive Summit
SUMMARY
========
• Details on Digeo
• Details on Insight
• Details on general MetaTV awareness
• Brief details on EnReach, Mixed Signals (Sony), PowerTV, Spiderdance, Canal Plus, Pace, Pioneer
• Summary of business contacts and opportunities
DETAILS
=======
Kagan held its 3rd iTV interactive summit 4/10-4/12 and we were invited to participate on a panel.
The event was held in the same old joint (see previous Kagan Capt. Midnights) with the same old carpet, with the same old wait staff, in the same old room.
However, this time things were a little different, as far as MetaTV was concerned.
The first time we got onto a Kagan panel, it was opportunistic (someone didn’t show) and I ended up convincing Paul Kagan that we were the perfect replacement.
The second time, we bribed our way on with a $5,000 sponsorship. Then, the tide started to change, Andrew Lev was invited to speak at the Kagan broadband summit last month and I was also invited to speak at the iTV conference this week. Definitely a sign of the times that, as Ranj and Andrew mentioned today, that MetaTV is gaining recognition in the industry and people are seeking us out as “industry experts” and “must haves” on important conferences and panels.
The panel I was on was called “of portals and people” and focused in on the question, who owns the first page. The TV portal? The IPG? On the panel were panelists from TV Guide Interactive (Todd Walker), WorldGate (Gerard Kunkel), Digeo (Michael Markman, VP marketing), Bob Clasen (CEO ICTV), Gene Feroglia (CEO isurfTV) and myself.
TV Guide took a very non-arrogant antagonistic approach to their presentation, saying that it’s down to the MSO to determine what they want to do and that Gemstar had no “designs on being the first page. However, he also pointed out that since people would be unlikely to turn off their set-top boxes (while they would turn off their TVs) there really would be no “first” page as such. WorldGate presented a bunch of statistics on their current subscriber base responses and preferences (I have the copy of the presentation and statistics from another WorldGate presentation – given to me by John E from a conference in Dallas that John presented at, at the same time if anyone is interested. Gerard mentioned MetaTV and the Ford implementation and we exchanged public kudos on the panel.
Digeo presented which caught everyone’s attention. They played up the whole “stealth” thing and presented the company goals and philosophy.
They didn’t mention ANY kind of technology, just services that they provide:
• Creative services (consistent design and UI)
• Customer services (CSR type functionality)
• Training cable sales, installers of headend equipment etc services
Their position was to be completely end to end services for rolling out iTV (starting of course with Charter). The did say that their company was 215 employees with 2/3’s focused on “Engineering”.
Their philosophy was every iTV service they roll out has to be
• Useable
• Useful
• Reliable
• Engaging
They then showed some Charter screen shots but beyond that not much additional info.
ICTV then presented with their usual stuff. I exchanged kudos with their CEO publicly as well. Its a great sign that 2 of the panel members public ally acknowledge the value of MetaTV in the context of their implementations.
Then IsurfTV presented. He mentioned to me during the break before the panel started that he felt that we were complimentary with MetaTV and that Gemstar was really their competition. But during his presentation his pulled up a very UPP like diagram with services and technology insulation. Their angle is to come at it from the TV listings perspective and then provide additional iTV services under that which support multiple platforms. Sounds like potential competition and we’ll look more closely at them once again.
Finally I did my pitch which worked well to tie in all the other points made by the fellow panelists and emphasized standards, proliferation of platforms and lack of skilled people out there to implement all of these great things that everyone was describing in panels throughout the conference.
It’s interesting to note that the iTV industry is going very much the way of the software industry for business – something that many of us here at MetaTV are very familiar with. This is all going according to our plan because the issues that everyone is going to face, we have gone through before and our technology will squarely satisfy these issues. I’m amused to see the current lack of interest in the lack of skills message because I know as the conferences go on, it will become a huge topic and almost consume the conversation, just like it happened within the software industry. Many of the software related issues are only just being raised (standards, UI) etc and we are way ahead of the curve in our thinking and implementation to meet those issues.
============================== Other panels/presentation notes =====================
• Bob Pittman (co-COO AOL Time Warner) keynoted and spoke about AOL Anywhere strategy and general industry trends but not anything specific about TW’s strategy
• Insight COO and CFO presented their iTV portal and gave some very interesting statistics. They said that the first page the set-top powered on was the “home” page which listed 8 choices – Digital Mall, WatchTV, Prog Guide, Local Source, OnDemandTV (VOD), Digital Music, Questions, Setup
o They have 135,00 subs running on 750mhz DCT2000s, Liberate compact with server based IPG and Diva for VOD (40,000 subs enabled) with Commerce.TV (just starting out no real transactions yet)
o She said that local content was big because parents liked to see what their local school lunches were that day for dinners, people checked for local movies and community info
o She said that they had 40-50 participants in their Digital Mall
o They charge $6.95 for the basic digital package which includes access to VOD (didn’t specify if each movie was extra – but it must be), digital music, IPG
Then within that they charge $4.95 per “pack” of either family, sports, movie
If someone takes the full “packs” then it’s discounted to $16.85 (she said there was a 70% update on full pack)
o She said that they had not yet monetized any gaming or t-commerce and that she was seeing incremental revenue of $22/month/customer with a 65% margin
o This produced a reduction in churn 1/3 of conventional digital with 40% increase in customer satisfaction
o She estimated that the cost all in was $250 per home for the whole digital package (includes infrastructure) and anticipated a 4 year payback.
o The payback on their direct iTV related investments to be 1 yr -1 1/2 years.
• CEO of Canal Plus, Jean Paul Racine did a keynote the next day and his message was around open standards, with OpenCable and MHP leading the way.
o He touted their Vivendi Universal linkage and said that they are essentially the iTV architect arm of the 2nd largest Media conglomerate in the world.
o He felt that the biggest obstacle to profitability within iTV was the cost of the set-top.
o He mentioned that the Canal Plus implementation in france Canal Satellite launched in 4/96 has 1.3M subs and was profitable last year 2000
o He said that Canal Plus is working on a next generation set-top codenamed G2 which has PVR and will sell for around $360 in Europe
• PowerTV CEO Steve Necessary presented and said that they had 7 million deployed boxes (5.5 on Scientific Atlanta and 1.5 on Pioneer)
o He claimed successful implementation for Videotron but said that it was very tough
o He pointed to customer service as a major component (see www.twtampabay.com it’s interesting)
• Pace had an interesting message, they claim 350,000 units deployed with Comcast and 750,000 units with Time Warner
o They said they have a contract with Comcast to build a box with PVR
o They touted big deployments in Europe with Liberate for NTL and Telewest
• Pioneer count Time Warner as their biggest customer in the US with the Voyager 4000 coming out featuring IM and Chat
• Phillips claim success with UPC partnering with OpenTV and Canal Plus
• HBO didn’t present but chatted to them and found out that they have a staff of 2 focused on iTV and farm out most of their work to Mixed Signals. They will only take on iTV projects to satisfy AOLTV and WebTV for now. Most of their work will be MSO driven, Mary Baumgartner will be calling me to discuss further if they get interested again.
• EnReach – this company was scarey at WCS, they appeared to have all the same messages and technology as us but it turns out that they are focused on “Broadband” (DSL) in the US. They have a $99 set-top which they want to aim at Hotels (watch out Innmedia) and also at DSL providers. Their CEO feels that they can’t get “in” with the MSOs
• Carolyn Beck the new CEO at Mixed signals presented and she had no demos and just powerpoints. Nothing of note, she touted their working with Sony and the Game show network. However, she did say that they were doing several new projects for Sony.
• Spiderdance guy that presented was very pro two screen vs one screen however I hear from Microsoft (Bridget) that they are working on a one screen project. But he definitely caused a stir by saying we don’t need iTV and should focus on a two screen experience
• SA and Motorola both have plans to rollout a webpad type appliance which would act as a kind of two screen interaction device. They and pace and Phillips all see a wireless Lan in the household with server technology serving up content to multiple devices.
• All the middleware and set-top vendors have similar strategies (PVR, wireless home networking, Web Pads)
Summary
=======
Overall good success at the conference although there was a distinct lack of actual content providers and MSOs. Mostly all technology companies chatting among themselves and forming partnerships. MetaTV was definitely sought out and I was approached several times by folks including “Theshoppingchannel.com”, HBO (interesting thing about HBO is that they only have a staff of , Gist.com (mentioned that they were already scheduled to get together with us), Crown Media, HP (mentioned a great meeting with Terry U about printing) and more.
Although there were less leads from this Kagan, it is still the place to be seen. A panel position is still very valued and Paul Kagan’s conferences are consistently attended by high ranking decision makers. As a sign of the times they didn’t even serve any juices at continental breakfast in the morning, just tea and coffee and some bagels. Everyone is hurting, particularly conferences. P2P is everywhere (just like MetaTV :-))
– R