The set-top box market is more crowded than ever and getting even more so as everyone from Rdio to Intel launches services and devices to cash in on the cord-cutting TV trend. To even have a chance in this $4.6 billion market, a newcomer can't launch a beta service. It has to be all or nothing -- and Boxee is giving some markets nothing.
Boxee relaunched its new $99 set-top box as a Could DVR box today, a gadget that will not only compete with set top boxes from Apple and Roku, but also sets its sights on DVR giant TiVo with its unlimited cloud DVR storage. Want to save all the episodes of The Simpsons? For $10 a month, you can do just that — if you live in one of eight markets that supports the Cloud DVR feature.
Large television markets like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are ready to go with the service. San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle? Not so much. If you live outside of the eight largest TV markets, the Boxee Cloud DVR also is not for you. Plus, the Boxee Cloud TV only works with over-the-air broadcast television. If you have cable, the Boxee also isn't the DVR for you.
Boxee says it will roll out its could service to 26 markets by the end of the year. Unfortunately, in today's cut-throat set-top box market, launching a product or service that serves but a fraction of the country or lacks the library to compete with established players is a one-way ticket to irrelevance.
Boxee's Liz Dellheim told Wired that the slow rollout is for scalability purposes and that the eight markets covered by Boxee's could service will reach 30-percent of U.S. Viewers. Making sure your service works before a national rollout is important, but the TV market doesn't care about scalability, it just wants to record Mad Men.
It doubly tough for companies like Boxee, because TiVo, the market leader, already covers 100-percent of U.S. viewers. It's tough out there for new services.
Rdio's Vdio service launched last week, and with nothing to set it apart from competitors like Apple, Amazon and Netflix will probably be forgotten. It launched too soon and without any features to inspire people to switch to a new service. You have to launch ready to take on the market leaders.
The Boxee Cloud DVR and service is in no way ready to make a huge impact. TiVo and cable set-top boxes have the DVR market tied up and work with cable and satellite services to provide vast content. The Roku 3 is an amazing OTT streamer, and Intel is entering the market with an as-yet unnamed service and set-top box that will feature subscription TV while supporting third-party services like Netflix, Hulu and others by the end of the year. The all-in-one set-top box market is about to get brutal.
A brutal TV market is no place for a device that only works for 30-percent of the market.
