Apple TV challenge from Google falls flat in 2010
Logitech has reportedly halted shipments of its Revue Google TV boxes through January while waiting for Google to update its software on the poorly selling units. — According to a report by DigiTimes, Logitech's supplier, Gigabyte Technology …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Revue was positioned as Google TV's flagship device when Logitech unveiled it in June (the set-top box announcement), and the product reached shelves in the fall after a slipping October launch window. But the momentum reversed quickly: days ago the New York Times reported Google TV facing delays and poor reviews, and this DigiTimes report — picked up by AppleInsider — says Logitech has asked supplier Gigabyte Technology to suspend Revue shipments through January while waiting for a Google software update.
Note the sourcing discipline here: the halt and Gigabyte's involvement are both unconfirmed reports traced to a single supply-chain source, so the story reads as a signal of distress rather than an official admission from either Logitech or Google.
First-order effects
- Logitech carries the direct hit: unsold holiday-season inventory of a poorly reviewed product, with its contract manufacturer Gigabyte idled through January on the rumor reported by DigiTimes.
Second-order effects
- Google TV's other prospective hardware partners watch Logitech absorb the downside of shipping against immature platform software, raising the bar for any OEM commitment to the platform in 2011.
- Apple TV enters 2011 as the low-priced living-room box that actually ships and sells, widening its practical lead over a rival platform stalled at retail.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, living-room platforms split into two models: tightly integrated hardware-software stacks where one company owns the update cadence, versus licensed platforms where OEMs bear inventory risk for software they don't control — a structural disadvantage for the latter unless the platform owner ships fixes faster than partners can burn cash.
The trend: TV-platform competition in 2010 is becoming a test of whether licensed Android-style ecosystems can match integrated hardware-software rivals when software quality, not price or distribution, is the binding constraint.