Neon's Set-Top boxes committed to standards

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Neon Technology's Set-Top Boxes committed to Standards; and will have RealAudio and Java (12-17-98)

Neon Technology Inc. makes a "basic" set-top box and a "standard" set-top box for accessing the Internet using a television set and a regular telephone line. A unique capability of the "standard" Neon box is that it has Internet telephony. Neon Technology is located in Milpitas, California, and can be found on the web at http://www.neontech.com. Charles Boyer, Marketing manager at Neon Technology provides some interesting information about the Neon set-top boxes in this Q&A session:

CB: There are a couple advantages to our platform. First, we're committed to standards. This extends from our hardware architecture to our software and choice of partners. All of our hardware is x86 based. This means that you can get the same level of quality and performance that platform has brought to PC's. This also has numerous design and manufacturing and compatibility benefits.

RH: Yes, I understand that. Some people have told me that x86 is the better way to go in order to ensure a box follows standards. What about the box's software?

CB: On the software level, we strive to support Internet standards chosen by Internet users and architects, not corporations. Our web browser is HTML 3.2 compliant with support for frames, tables and many popular extensions. We also support Javascript 1.1 and SSL 3.0.

RH: You know that WebTV has had some news coverage about their "turnaround" on Java and RealAudio. Although I may only have ancedotal data (email from set-top viewers), I can tell you that there is demand for Java and RealAudio from set-top viewers. Your website does not talk about Java or RealAudio. Will your boxes support Java and RealAudio?

CB: We are currently beta testing Real Player 5.0 and should be releasing that very shortly. We hope to have a Personal Java enabled product in late 1999.

RH: Your box has internet telephony.....

CB: Yes, we are the only provider of an embedded Internet telephony product and feel that communications features such as these are key to building a market with consumers.

RH: ... Your website has a bit of javascript in it. I would assume that the Neon box handles javascript very well and that the box does not crash under typical user pressure?

CB: Our Javascript has been shipping for more than 6 months now. Of course we do occasionally experience problems. The Internet is too large a thing not to. However, we've worked hard to provide a very stable software foundation.

RH: Stable. That's good to hear. Is the browser, the O/S, the software made in-house at Neon or is the software made by someone else?

CB: Our browser is based on an HTML parser from Spyglass and we use the QNX RTOS for underlying support for our applications. All other hardware and software design is done by Neon Technology. We also have manufacturing capabilities in Taiwan and China.

RH: There's those two names: Spyglass and QNX. Spyglass has had a strong influence on the Internet and has been extending its reach into set-tops and other devices. And people have been asking about QNX and software technology for making small devices work. Moving from the technical to the consumer: What would the retail price be like for the regular consumer?

CB: Retail price should be around $299 including the wireless keyboard. We hope to provide more direct channels to our customers to help lower the price to the $249 range.

RH: Are you looking at the international market, or are you looking at how things pan out in the U.S. market?

CB: We are very excited about the international market and our focus has been primarily in Asia, specifically Taiwan and China. We currently support English, French, Spanish, German and Chinese. We are just beginning to move into the U.S. market and hope to have a product available here in early 1999.

RH: Maybe a related question is how do you see the market for telephone-based set-top boxes when there is the seemingly pending onslaught of interactive cable TV?

CB: High-bandwidth technologies such as cable and ADSL are set to take off over the next few years. We have working units now which support cable and ADSL in anticipation of this market. Unfortunately, cost and infrastructure issues will hamper the growth of this market short-term leaving a large market for telephone-based solutions both in the U.S. and abroad. We plan to continue our modem-based options while also developing broad-band solutions for the higher-end. I think that with the FCC mandated retail market for set-tops in 2000, we will see a wide variety of devices with differing capabilities and price-points.

Neon is providing a good example that the telephone-based set-top box will not roll over and play dead with the coming of interactive cable TV. A lot of the promised developments for interactive cable TV will depend on high-level management decisions, logistics, whether to spend the money, installation or upgrades of new hardware, etc. Meanwhile, as Neon works on faster boxes to compete in the future interactive TV hardware marketplace, Neon has its two telephone-based set-top boxes ready to go for Internet on TV.

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