Op-chief Tim Cook recently in a conference call with Wall Street analysts re-iterrated Apple’s stance that the Apple TV box remains “a hobby” for the company. The comment jibes with Steve Jobs’s argument from the Wall Street Journal’s D8 conference last year when he said set-top box makers like Apple and Google faced a go-to market problem, calling the television market “balkanized” (full quote and video below the fold).
Is it surprising then to find out that Google TVs are not selling very well, just like Apple TVs? What we didn’t know is how bad the situation is for the search giant’s set-top box pet project. TIMN points at a prepared statement from Logitech, the maker of Google TV-powered Revue box, in which the company acknowledged “very modest sales” of the product in the June quarter:
Google on its part will update the Google TV project with Honeycomb code later this summer, adding the ability to download and run apps on your television. But despite the aggressive price cut which will cost Logitech $34 million in one-time charges and the fact that the Revue now price-matches the $99 Apple TV, ordinary consumers will still be avoiding set-top boxes in droves, regardless of a brand. Apple on its part could tackle the issue with a rumored full-blown television set with the Apple TV functionality built-in. Now, about that Steve Jobs argument…
Apple TV remains a “hobby business”, Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg, because there’s no viable market and market incumbents are stifling innovation with free set-top boxes. Apple, Google and other companies that sell paid set-top boxes all face this problem, he underscored. Apple’s boss then launched into the following expose:
Cross-posted on 9to5Google.com [vodpod id=Video.14048425&w=425&h=350&fv=videoGUID%3DFF922002-FA63-4B68-A326-EA12EC800612%26amp%3Bplayerid%3D4001%26amp%3BplyMediaEnabled%3D1%26amp%3BconfigURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwsj.vo.llnwd.net%2Fo28%2Fplayers%2F%26amp%3BautoStart%3Dfalse]
