Gizmo Lovers Blog » Wall Street Journal

TiVo’s Tom Rogers In The Wall Street Journal

MegaZone — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:58:07 +0000

It has been over a week since we reported on Tom Rogers discussion with Kara Swisher at the All Things Digital Conference, but The Wall Street Journal has picked up the story. While a little late, it is nice to see coverage like this in the main stream media and not just the blogs and tech press.

Wal*Mart Offering HD DVD Player Refunds

MegaZone — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:10:13 +0000

Joining Best Buy and Circuit City, Wal*Mart is offering an olive branch for the ~~suckers~~unfortunates who were left with an abandoned format when HD DVD threw in the towel. Wal*Mart will allow you to return your HD DVD player for a refund – if you purchased it after November 1, 2007 and you have the original receipt. Returns must be made by April 30, 2008, and you don’t need the original packaging – just the unit and receipt. SlickDeals.net has the internal Wal*Mart memo about the returns, you may want to bring that along just in case your local store resists the return. Specifically eight models are being accepted for return, the UPCs are listed in the memo.

From SlickDeals and the WSJ, by way of EngadgetHD.

TiVo And Slingbox Are Changing The TV Landscape

MegaZone — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:01:52 +0000

Jason Fry of the Wall Street Journal has taken a look at how time-shifting via TiVo and place-shifting via Slingbox are changing the TV landscape and the social aspect of TV viewing.“Today my TV is not your TV, and you can never assume the same people are watching the same thing at the same time or in the same way.” And he expresses feelings that are likely common to most DVR users – not wanting to go back to pre-DVR TV viewing, of the power to watch the content you want when you want, and the large behavioral changes their bring to our TV-related habits. But what I found most interesting is his list of five major lessons learned from the first years of DVR use. Give it a read.

Toshiba Picks Up The Pieces After HD DVD Failure

MegaZone — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:02:21 +0000

The Wall Street Journal talked to Toshiba’s CEO, Atsutoshi Nishida, focusing mainly on the HD DVD decision. While I still blame Toshiba for starting the format war in the first place (I really should get around to writing up my synopsis of the war), I have to give Nishida credit for making the decision to end the war. I have to say he comes across fairly well in the interview, though the gloves definitely stayed on – the questions were easy lobs, not exactly hard hitting.

WSJ: When did you first start thinking about withdrawing from the HD DVD business?
Mr. Nishida: When Warner [Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros.] announced its support for Blu-ray on the 4th of January. We took a little time before reaching a final decision, so we could give people a chance to voice their opinions and we could consider all the ramifications and consequences of pulling out, such as how it would affect consumers and us.
WSJ: Most industry observers had expected the format war to continue for a while longer. Why did you decide to pull out so quickly?
Mr. Nishida: I didn’t think we stood a chance after Warner left us because it meant HD DVD would have just 20% to 30% of software market share. One has to take calculated risks in business, but it’s also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong. We were doing this to win, and if we weren’t going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard.

Sounds like he approached it logically and rationally, and didn’t allow corporate pride to keep Toshiba in the fight. He recognized that the war was lost, and if Toshiba couldn’t get a win then it was time to concede and cut their losses. He deserves credit for making the decision to end things quickly. And yes, January 4th (Warner’s announcement) to February 19th (Toshiba’s announcement) is very quick for a major corporate direction change. Toshiba had to coordinate with all of their partners as well.

Nishida reiterates that Toshiba plans to focus on DVD, at least for the time being. It sounds like they’ll be sitting out the Blu-ray market, though personally I can’t see them abstaining forever. They may wait until the market grows a bit to try to carve out a bit for themselves. For now they plan to focus on upconverting DVD players and PCs. They’ll also be putting more resources behind video downloads now that HD DVD is dead.