Ray Van Eng (07/14/97)                                

As we all know, WebTV or other similar set top products use the familiar household television set to access the Internet.

But interestingly, WebTV and its siblings are really not about the web or the TV for that matter. It is about building a platform to offer convergence products and services. Recent developments among a variety of companies seem to confirm this view.

Philips Consumer Electronics, one of the first WebTV hardware partner, is focusing on the education market, aiming to build a web site "Planet K-12' to serve the needs of teachers and student everywhere around the world. Philips is also interested in providing word processing, and perhaps web page development software which will in effect turns a WebTV enabled unit into a network computer running applications from a central server.

On the drawing board of a future Philips set top unit are ports for direct connection to an Ethernet network, a Hewlett-Packard printer and a digital video still camera. The last two combination could be interesting as HP has just unveiled a new system that will enable consumes to send, receive and print out high resolution photographs over the Internet. You can be sure that Kodak will react to HP's encroachment onto the digital imaging field.

Since the Microsoft purchase of WebTV (which is awaiting regulatory approval), the service no longer has to be tied to the WebTV Network. Customers are free to choose their own ISPs and those who do will still have to pay a $9.95 monthly subscription fee.

Those who opt for the WebTV Network will pay $19.95 a month. There are currently more than 85,000 subscribers and 67% of the users get on the Net everyday, the company claims.

WebTV has also indicated that it will beef up its multimedia display technology to better handle framed web pages, support for Macromedia Flash animation (many Hollywood movie entertainment web sites use this technology), JavaScript, multiple audio formats including Real Audio 3.0, ShockWave, QuickTime Audio, streaming-MPEG and MIDI-Karaoke etc.

On the electronic commerce side, Wells Fargo Bank has announced that WebTV users can now access its web site for electronic banking services. By the way, America Online (AOL) users can also take advantage of the Wells Fargo service via special Windows 3.1 and 95 software.

An increasing number of WebTV units will also have smart card slots to handle home banking, shopping, remote access and other Internet based transaction services.

The San Franciso based Wells Fargo, together with BankAmerica Corp., Chase Manhattan Corp., Citicorp and American Express are also in a deal with Microsoft and First Data Corp. to develop an online bill payment service. The MSFDC venture will allow consumers to receive statements from utility companies online and be able to pay them via the Internet, a telephone connection or a WebTV like network infrastructure.

So there you have it, in the future, there will be broadcast-TV, cable-TV, satellite-TV, PC-TV and then there will be Web-TV of which WebTV will be seen as an early pioneer. Best of all though, is that we the consumer will ultimately decide what we are going to use the new platform for.

Related stories:

Internet TV -- The Next Big Wave for Web Surfing

WebTV & Microsoft vow for a PC/TV Union

PC and TV Will Merge To Serve The Net