Motorola Looking to Sell Set-Top Box Unit

[ikki]

For those that missed this in another thread on Satellite Guys.

Motorola Looking to Sell Set-Top Box Unit, WSJ Says (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

EXCLUSIVE: Motorola set-top box unit lures PE bids | Reuters

Hopefully this happens sooner then later. In a perfect world someone other then Sony would buy this division and license the DC2 technology to others.

 

[Dannymcenrow]

Yeah?
This is BAD NEWS for us.
Because once they sell it to another company the first thing they'll do is cut us off since we are such a small quantity of subscribers they are gonna stop updating the guide at least and maybe send a signal to our units to make our units inoparable so we'll have to switch to small dish.
I think this will end up in one of the small dishes hand surely because they are the ones that knows more about satelittes then anybody else so they'll buy motorola and zap all our boxes so they'll only work with their small dish service.
So now we're really doomed.

 

[crackt]

Yeah?
This is BAD NEWS for us.
Because once they sell it to another company the first thing they'll do is cut us off since we are such a small quantity of subscribers they are gonna stop updating the guide at least and maybe send a signal to our units to make our units inoparable so we'll have to switch to small dish.
I think this will end up in one of the small dishes hand surely because they are the ones that knows more about satelittes then anybody else so they'll buy motorola and zap all our boxes so they'll only work with their small dish service.
So now we're really doomed.

dont be so quick. dc2 services more than just 4dtv. add in cable provider downlinks/ shaw direct subs / and commercial installs such as hotels and its a bigger market than you think. motorola like all lock and key proprietary tech developers let it get stagnant is all. liscesing the tech to other companies would be interesting indeed.

crackt out,.

 

[riffjim4069]

I think the 4DTV services will be fine for a couple years as part of any sales agreement. On a larger scale, the key part of the analysis included the following state, "Maybe Motorola is looking at that and thinking eventually the business is going to shift away from the cable providers to a more retail model," said Forrester Group analyst Charles Golvin. "I think there will be a range of different devices and things that connect to TVs to deliver content."

Personally, I would love to FINALLY see the consumer retail products market explode and move away from the Cable dominated set-top market...cablecard has been a failure.

 

[tvropro]

Yeah?
This is BAD NEWS for us.
Because once they sell it to another company the first thing they'll do is cut us off since we are such a small quantity of subscribers they are gonna stop updating the guide at least and maybe send a signal to our units to make our units inoparable so we'll have to switch to small dish.
I think this will end up in one of the small dishes hand surely because they are the ones that knows more about satelittes then anybody else so they'll buy motorola and zap all our boxes so they'll only work with their small dish service.
So now we're really doomed.

The worst thing that can happen is they will cut off the consumer data stream for the 4DTV. If that happens the 4DTV will work as a FTA receiver using the generic maps. There will be no guide but the channels that are in FP & ZK will still work. This also means that when a cable feed using our technology is ITC we will still get it.

If someone resurrected the old 4play program we could make our own channel maps and play with it like we do with DVB.

We could also point our 4D's at Shaw (*C) and let it map in and watch there FP stuff.

 

[guapoharry]

Time for someone like SatelliteAV to think big! Calling responsible venture capitalists!!!

If not that, look out... Here comes Comcast...:dev

 

[bassist]

I would LOVE to be a 4DTV subscriber instead of a DN victim. BUT, until 4DTV offers the espn channels there's no way. I suspect that the lack of espn chases away many, if not most, potential customers.

 

[msrebel]

Exactly the same reason I have directv subscription now because I can no longer get espn channels on my 4dtv. Would drop direct tomorrow if we could get back those channels.

 

[truckracer]

can't we use generic satellites to get shaw fp channels

 

[tvropro]

You can get the Shaw FP & ZK channels with any 4DTV. The thing about the generics even if you entered in the right info on one of those the 4D would map the Shaw maps. On a 922 or 920 you would overload the TDT, on a 905 it wouldn't. I use a DSR 405 for the Shaw FP & ZK channels. Don't bother my 922 that way.

 

[sideswiper]

hope 4DTV last atleast a couple more years, just got a 922 and am enjoying it so far

 

[navychop]

Can't help but wonder if part of the decision was anticipation of future competition for set top boxes, especially DVRs, from Echostar. Now that E* can sell these boxes to cablecos, maybe Motorola is expecting one of them to crack and offer a top quality STB that makes the Motorola/SA boxes look bad by comparison. For an extra monthly fee to their subscribers, of course.

Just don't know percentages - how much is FTA/commercial and how much is sales to cablecos for placement in homes?

 

[ikki]

I would NOT read too much into this. The issue at hand is Motorola does not know a good product from someones @$$. Motorola simply wants out of the set top box business, as well as the home wireless data market, and the cell phone bussiness. All of which in my opinion could be strong markets if they would fire the entire management staff and start over.

With Motorola's track record on cell phones, home wireless, and set up boxes this can only be a win win situation for the consumer.

 

[navychop]

So what's left to them? They certainly don't have the grip on radios they once did.

 

[classicsat]

IMHO 4DTV and the whole DCII system is fine. It is just that Motorola will not be designing or manufacturing boxes anymore, not that

What I see are companies such as Pace picking up where Motorola left off in the DCII boxes, and Tru2Way taking over the US cable market, both in boxes manufactured by Samsung and such, leased by the cable providers, and customer owned boxes, such as TiVo.

 

[ZetaMale]

I would LOVE to be a 4DTV subscriber instead of a DN victim. BUT, until 4DTV offers the espn channels there's no way. I suspect that the lack of espn chases away many, if not most, potential customers.

Even though I love to watch ice hockey, I wouldn't pay a dime for any sports programming. They charge way too much and you can't get all of the games (even the ones being played in another market - in other words, some games get blacked out when they shouldn't be).

 

[ikki]

Followup

Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:09am IST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. mobile phone maker Motorola Inc is revisiting its plan to reorganize its business units and as a result, the auction of its home and networks division has slowed down, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Motorola's board will meet at the end of January to decide whether to sell the networking division or spin it off along with its mobile handset business as one entity, the source said.

Several private equity firms put in initial bids in December for the networking division, which houses Motorola's set-top box unit, sources earlier told Reuters.


Read the whole story below

Motorola set-top box unit auction slows - sources | Technology | Reuters