How The Newest Set-Top Boxes Will Fare: Picking The Winners

Air Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Cost: $250

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Who should attend: Consumer Product Strategy professionals

Description:

Between 2007 and 2008, manufacturers announced or deployed significant new set-top box products, each of them building on slightly different assets but all targeting the same goal — establishing an early foothold in at least a million living rooms. Because this technology is very immature and still at the starting line, Forrester ran six competing new set-top boxes through its competitive consumer technology product ranking tool. Our assessment predicts that all the set tops on the market will struggle to overcome significant barriers, even if they serve significant consumer needs; however, we pick the Netflix Player by Roku as the likely unit leader. In the end, the future of the set-top box is not a box at all but a video service that will serve multiple boxes as well as video devices like TV sets and DVD players.

Agenda:

• Does the world really need another set-top box?
• Competitive set-top product ranking: Which will stand a chance in the future?
• Congestion ahead: There are too many alternate routes to the same destination.
• The future set-top-box strategy is not a set-top Box at all — it's a service.

Vendors mentioned: Apple, Blockbuster, CinemaNow, Cisco, Comcast, Digeo, Hollywood Video, HP, Hulu.com, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, Netflix, Roku, Samsung, Sezmi, Sony, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Vudu, and ZeeVee

Related Research:

How Video Will Take Over The World

by James L. McQuivey, Ph.D., June 17, 2008

What It Really Means To Watch TV Online

by James L. McQuivey, Ph.D., May 08, 2008

Consumers And The DVR

by Paul Jackson, April 03, 2008

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