A world of standards to choose from

At Digital World’s much anticipated Great Interactive Television Platform Debate, a panel of executives from the computer industry presented their varying agendas for developing equipment and software to enable two-way TV, and Apple Computer publicly unveiled its ITV strategy for the first time.

That all the participants were from large, established companies in the computer industry shows the complexity of the digital network being built, and the cross-industry cooperation that will be required to build it.

The distinguished panel included Craig Mundie, general manager of Microsoft’s advanced consumer products division; Bob Frankenberg, VP and general manager of Hewlett-Packard’s Personal Information Products Group; Nat Goldhaber, then president and CEO of Kaleida Labs; and Gaston Bastiaens, general manager of Apple’s Personal Interactive Electronics (PIE) division.

Though each would like to be the company that “owns” the platform for interactive TV, however they define such a thing, it was clear by the end of the session that multiple platforms and standards will prevail at least until we move through some fairly significant market research and field testing of these systems. Such foment signals the start of a potentially healthy industry.

THE BEGINNING OF AN ‘INTERACTIVE FOOD CHAIN’

Microsoft’s Mundie, head of the group that’s developing software and tools for ITV, began the debate with a presentation on his company’s strategy for ITV. (Microsoft, you may recall, has a working alliance with Intel and settop provider General Instrument to provide a program guide/navigation interface.)

Chain, chain, chain. Microsoft sees an ITV platform as only the beginning of “an interactive food chain” that includes content and service developers and providers. Content and services provided by ITV are the most critical element to interactive television’s success.

In this light, Mundie said, it’s interesting to people at Microsoft to watch the furor created over the rumored affiliation (called Cablesoft) between Time Warner, Tele-Communications Inc. and Microsoft. “While an operating system strategy is important, “it is only one very small part of this.” (Mitch Kapor’s keynote presentation, chronicled on p. 14, discusses why this “very small part” is so critical.)

Interfaces, OS and tools. ITV requires four components, according to Mundie: a fully switched, two-way, broadband digital network; program display and selection mechanisms; a variety of distributed computing capabilities; and shared sources of interactive content and services.

Microsoft plans to participate in the creation of viewer display and selection mechanisms, operating systems and authoring tools. “We realize we can’t do it all,” he said.

In designing interfaces to be displayed in the living room, Microsoft is trying to keep the consumer, not computer users, in mind. “We’re not going to bring Windows as we know it on the PC to your TV,” said Mundie, to enthusiastic applause from the audience. He believes that many different interfaces, targeted at different users, will be employed. “There’s not going to be any one-size-fits-all human interface.”

Beyond Windows. Microsoft is also developing a new operating system architecture for ITV. As did the cable industry, Microsoft seems to have changed its earlier attitude toward the developing network and is now working to provide system software to support a complex of distributed computing capabilities for a fully switched, broadband digital network.

Because Microsoft is not traditionally known for its strengths in networking systems, Mundie said the creation of such a system will be a challenge. Its requirements are substantially different from any in existence, he said, and the company is well aware that it must also address the critical consumer-acceptance problems of privacy, security and network control.

Making an open framework. Lastly, said Mundie, Microsoft is developing authoring and creation tools for ITV programming. Microsoft doesn’t plan to develop all the tools itself. An “open framework” will allow other companies to produce tools as well, much as has evolved in the PC market.

In the Q&A following his presentation, Mundie was under fire from a decidedly hostile crowd that wanted to know Microsoft’s definition of “open,” as well as assurances that Microsoft would not use its tremendous clout in the computer industry to impose its vision of ITV on the world.

No slam-dunk answers. “In this [ITV] world in particular, I don’t think we start with any huge advantage over some of the other companies,” he said. “We want to use the name, reputation and technology we have. I think we should be proud to do that. I don’t think we have a slam-dunk answer for every technical and relationship problem that exists in this business.”

Mundie said Microsoft favors market-driven standards over those imposed by standards organizations. Microsoft would participate with standards bodies when it is appropriate in order to achieve compatibility, he said, but standards can’t be set for the huge array of interfaces required by ITV.

HEWLETT-PACKARD TAKES THE RESEARCHED APPROACH

Bob Frankenberg of Hewlett-Packard believes that at the outset, ITV will follow the evolutionary path of the computer industry that spawned multiple platforms. But unlike the computer industry, which waited many decades before taking the steps to make systems work together over networks, these companies will be forced to work together on some level to ensure that content and services — such as interactive advertising, movies on demand or shopping — are available on a nationwide basis.

In other words, the problems that the “multimedia” industry faces today — i.e., lack of widespread developer interest because there’s no single standard to develop to — will plague ITV in spades unless there’s a core set of data formats, operability (i.e., fault tolerance) and interoperability standards.

Coming out of the closet. Frankenberg said that HP, which came out of the closet about its ITV plans by exhibiting at the National Cable Show last month, only plans to compete on the hardware side in the new ITV industry. It hopes to create standards at this system interface level via its development of a universal settop box. “This allows for growth and innovation underneath (in the system software) as well as on top (in the applications and programming area),” said Frankenberg.

He claims HP will work with standards as they evolve, but initially it will support a range of operating environments.

Working with TV Answer. As part of its charter to provide hardware solutions, HP’s first ITV customer is TV Answer. The TV Answer system relies on technology significantly less sophisticated than that of a fully switched digital network (see Part I of our ITV series, Vol. 2, No. 12, p. 3). However, as Frankenberg pointed out, it is a good place to start. TV Answer can reach the 40 percent of U.S. homes that are not connected to cable —and can reach businesses as well, which are not traditionally cabled.

In addition, the TV Answer system is complementary to cable and has capabilities that he believes will bridge into a fully switched interactive environment.

The modular approach. HP’s modular approach to settop boxes has yielded a prototype, which Frankenberg showed during his presentation. Looking like a combination between a CD audio player and an old-fashioned 8-track tape deck, the box has removable cartridges that Frankenberg said will allow cable companies to upgrade services without replacing the entire box. For example, an online video game customer might find it useful to slip in a module that contained a sophisticated graphics processor.

You can take it with you. To that same end, an enticing additional benefit, which Frankenberg would not detail, was that his little HP personal assistant was almost exactly the same size as a cartridge module. This has fascinating ramifications for the consumer’s ability to download information into a portable device from the TV system, and shows the kind of imaginative problem-solving that’s likely to make HP a force to contend with in the ITV arena.

Frankenberg said that HP will produce basic settop units for “under $300″ (though today’s settop box providers say that’s still way too high for cable operators), but for that price consumers should not expect the kind of “3D morph shopping” that everyone seems to be promising will be standard on every ITV system.

Doing its homework. Hewlett-Packard’s strategy for ITV is the result of two years of extensive consumer research. (For a summary of this research, see Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 10.) Security and privacy ranked foremost among consumer concerns. The study also found that people are overloaded with data, but underloaded with the information they want and need. Lastly, consumers wanted to be wowed by exciting new capabilities at a cost of less than $300.

KALEIDA LABS AS SAMURAI ITV PLAYER

Much in contrast with Hewlett-Packard’s approach, Kaleida’s Nat Goldhaber said ITV is not an area where elaborate studies are needed. The industry should simply go with its gut.

Kaleida recently signed a deal to provide its cross-platform scripting language called ScriptX to Scientific Atlanta (a leading provider of cable settop boxes), which Goldhaber believes offers a solution to problems of platform incompatibility.

A single development platform. A distributed version of ScriptX, which is under development, would have much the same goal as ScriptX has for today’s CD-ROM-based multimedia world. It would allow developers of ITV programming to create a program or service only once to work on a variety of hardware and software systems.

Distributed ScriptX will support the sharing of objects over the network and across ITV platforms, Goldhaber said: objects would reside partially on a server (i.e., the headend or a server on a telephone network) and partially on the settop, enabling multiple shared objects to be synchronized in real time. It will also feature some kind of lock-and-key technology to protect against theft of intellectual property or network services.

Kaleida’s existing ITV alliance is with Motorola and Scientific Atlanta to develop terminals, servers and networks using ScriptX. Several hardware manufacturers, such as Hitachi, Creative Labs, Toshiba and Mitsubishi, are developing settop boxes incorporating the ScriptX technology as well.

APPLE UNVEILS EZTV, ITS PLAY FOR DOMINATION

The surprise of the ITV platform debate was that it unveiled a rivalry we weren’t exactly expecting to see: between Apple Computer and its progeny, Kaleida Labs.

Gaston Bastiaens, general manager of the PIE division at Apple (which provides 50 percent of Kaleida’s budget) that’s developing the company’s EZTV system, claims PIE is waiting to support distributed ScriptX as the scripting language for EZTV.

But the two are obviously creating ITV systems that compete on many levels, despite Apple’s efforts to make it seem as though the developments were cooperative. Though no one at either company is mentioning it, we are certain that this rivalry played a major role in Goldhaber’s ouster from Kaleida.

A copyrighted charter. Bastiaens provided some much needed comic relief during his presentation. “PIE’s… charter is to develop products and services that are so compelling that just by nature, on its own, it will become a standard for the way we work, learn, communicate and play. This sentence is copyrighted,” he said to a roar of audience laughter.

But he also provided some important news: Apple’s EZTV system, which he demonstrated with its designer, Fabrice Florin, is based upon the company’s Newton technology.

A platform for communication. This is excellent news. First, despite all the bad press that Apple’s gotten because its Newton PDA (personal digital assistant) is running behind schedule, this set of technologies is a perfect front-end to the kind of full-service TV network that Geoff Holmes of Time Warner and Ed Horowitz of Viacom discussed in the Projects and Prototypes session (see p. 27).

Second, Apple is in the process of making some significant Newton alliances, including some with Bell operating companies that will make the Newton a base for “smart phones.” Bastiaens said Apple has been focusing on making these types of alliances, rather than the “smoke and mirrors” type that are more typically being made in this area, because Apple believes that the promise of ITV lies equally in its ability to deliver information services over a fully switched, rather than a channelized, network architecture (i.e., telco rather than cable).

Apple is also allied with America Online, working with the online information service provider on underlying architectures and user interfaces to develop multimedia mail, home shopping, interactive libraries and games, etc.

EZTV, the demo. In a nutshell, here’s what Bastiaens and Florin demonstrated: EZTV uses a remote control device that is the single unifying object to the system (i.e., the focus is off the settop box). The remote has a built-in microphone and speaker that allows you to speak on both the telephone and to the TV (using Casper, Apple’s voice-recognition technology).

Using a large cursor and a joystick-like mechanism on the remote, you can mark programs, access online services and slip into telephone mode. An “info” button allows you to “pop up” information, such as sports scores. “One-touch videotaping” and virtual VCR are supported. Using multimedia mail, you can record a program and send it to someone else’s video mailbox.

Jumping with Casper. A program guide can be directed by Casper technology — you can jump directly to Saturday, or to a particular program, by using a combination of a voice button and speaking into the remote’s microphone.

The interface supports multiple viewer profiles and categories, and 12 active screens can be in preview at one time.

“When the smoke clears, we will find (ITV) is not about hundreds of channels, but personal channels” enabled by a fully switched system, said Bastiaens, echoing Apple chairman John Sculley’s keynote remarks. It must support everything from broadcast TV to personal services. “Video on demand alone will not justify large investments. EZTV is the basis for two-way interactive communications, way beyond video on demand.”

Only a year away. Designed specifically to be a communications platform that can handle virtually all data types, the Newton EZTV demo (we use the term loosely — both Florin and Bastiaens admitted it was largely hardwired) showed that leading technologies such as voice input (via Apple’s Casper system) would provide great benefit to navigating and interacting with an ITV system.

Bastiaens said that some major alliance announcements are in the works and that “somewhere around one year” from now, EZTV “will be available as a product. We’d like to see it in every home.” This statement no doubt made blood drain from the faces of engineers in the PIE division, but we suppose EZTV can be the first test of Newton’s object-based, “snap-in-tools” system architecture.

Bastiaens assured developers of interactive programming, concerned with the multiplicity of platforms, that it would support ScriptX as a cross-platform development system. “We are developing EZTV with ScriptX in mind,” he said. “We think ScriptX can be an answer to your worries. We absolutely will forcefully support ScriptX.”

THEY’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT, LIKE IT OR NOT

Despite the impressive demo, Apple is in the same position as virtually everyone vying for attention in ITV today: no deliverables, very few specifics and a lot of hope for the future. But its goals are identical to everyone who’s angling for play in ITV: provide a solution (hopefully its own) to real-time navigation on a fully switched network and make the technology available to major industry players, including cable, telco and anyone else it can get involved. Considering the multiplicity of companies involved, the real task that lies ahead is not to select the winner, but to create a network where their visions can coexist.

Denise Caruso, Amy Johns