Logitech unveiling Google TV product on Oct. 6
Logitech sent this invitation to journalists. — It looks as if Logitech will beat Sony across the Google TV finish line. — Sony recently trumpeted an October 12 event in New York City, at which the company will be revealing its Google TV-powered Internet TV.
Context & Ripple Effects
Logitech has been the most visible Google TV hardware partner since spring: the March New York Times report on Google and its partners seeking a television foothold put the company at the center of the effort, and by June its set-top box had a name — the Logitech Revue. A mid-September report pegged the platform's official launch for around October 17.
The October 6 event now confirmed by invitation turns that timeline into a horse race: Logitech appears set to put the first retail Google TV product on stage six days before Sony reveals its Google TV-powered Internet TV in New York on October 12. For a peripheral maker stepping into the living room, being first to market against a consumer-electronics giant is the whole story.
First-order effects
- Logitech's Revue becomes the first Google TV product consumers can actually see and buy, converting months of partner-stage announcements into a shipped device under Logitech's brand.
- Sony's October 12 New York event loses its claimed debut status — it becomes a fast-follower reveal rather than the introduction of Google TV.
Second-order effects
- Sony must now position its integrated Internet TV sets against a cheaper external set-top box from Logitech, forcing an explicit price-and-form-factor comparison between built-in and add-on Google TV.
- Google gets two competing hardware showcases inside one week, letting it demonstrate that multiple manufacturers are shipping on its TV platform — leverage for recruiting further TV partners.
Third-order effects
- If both launches land as scheduled, the living-room market starts structuring around licensed operating systems — hardware makers competing on top of Google's software layer much as phone makers did with Android — rather than around proprietary TV interfaces.
The trend: Television is becoming the next Android-style platform war, with the pace set by whichever licensee ships Google TV hardware first.