So far, Viiv's lackluster reception among consumers is a far cry from the success Intel enjoyed with "Intel Inside," the 1990s campaign that made Intel a household name.
March 12, 2007 (Press Release) --
Aureo Parilla, a 37-year-old electronics engineer, stood in the personal computer aisle at Fry's Electronics in San Jose last week helping his friend buy a new PC.
The computer they were looking at had a small "Intel Viiv" logo. Parilla was very familiar with Intel, but not Viiv. "I don't know what that is. I have no idea," Parilla said. "I haven't seen it on TV."
Parilla is not alone. In the same Fry's, where Silicon Valley's geeks love to shop, several people looking at home PCs had no idea what the purple, pink and orange Viiv logo meant or how it was pronounced (it rhymes with five). Two assumed it was the name of an Intel chip. One Fry's salesman called it "V2V."
And so it goes for Intel's Viiv brand, which has not created much of a buzz since its splashy launch in 2006.
Viiv is a brand campaign and set of technologies all rolled into one - what Intel calls a technology "platform." The Santa Clara chip giant launched Viiv to kick-start a new wave of home entertainment PCs for watching and listening to state-of-the-art movies, music and other digital content.
But so far, Viiv's lackluster reception among consumers is a far cry from the success Intel enjoyed with "Intel Inside," the 1990s campaign that made Intel a household name, and with its Centrino brand for wireless computing.
"The Viiv logo has not achieved the word-of-mouth association that Centrino did nine months after its launch," said Rick Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group in Seaford, N.Y. "The first year after Centrino, it was almost synonymous with wireless computing."
Intel executives bristle at comparisons with Centrino, the company's first platform pitch, launched in 2003 with a $300 million marketing campaign. Centrino combined an Intel Pentium M chip for mobile computing, two chipsets and a networking card, built into a laptop for an easy-to-use wireless connection. The company also heavily promoted certified hardware and hot spots, or wireless-ready locations. And Intel created an ecosystem of partners, including computer makers and service providers.
Eric Kim, the Intel marketing guru in charge of Viiv, said comparisons with Centrino are not valid.
"I know a lot of people want to com Indeed, the wireless capability of Centrino is easy to understand.
But Viiv comes across as an amorphous concept that encompasses both a group of technologies and content.
"The specific benefit from Viiv is difficult for people to understand," said Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group. "Without question, Intel has throttled back its ambitions with Viiv."
Intel said it has partnerships with 150 content providers to provide either exclusive content or content that runs better on a Viiv-certified PC. But the problem is that Viiv PCs do not yet easily connect to high-definition TVs, which many believe is the holy grail of the totally digital living room.
When Viiv was first launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2006, Intel described it as the catalyst for digital home entertainment, delivered through the Internet and played on a variety of gadgets. But consumer electronics makers still dominate the living room with their ever-growing plasma big-screen television sets and set-top boxes, and the PC is still relegated to the den.
As all content goes digital, computer makers want to make the PC the hub for all digital entertainment - or at least convince consumers to store all of their movies, TV shows, home videos, photos and music on the PC. And Hollywood wants to retain rights to its movies and music.
So Viiv offers some ways to help ease Hollywood's fears of piracy - by having creators develop content exclusively for the Viiv platform.
As part of its Hollywood initiative, Intel invested in ClickStar, a digital entertainment venture headed by actor Morgan Freeman and producer Lori McCreary. At the 2006 CES, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini trotted out Freeman and other actors and filmmakers, including Danny DeVito and Tom Hanks, to promote Viiv. ClickStar offers first-run films for consumers to download, before they are released to DVD.
Erik Bright, a spokesman for ClickStar, said Freeman's movie "10 Items or Less" is now available for consumers to download to Viiv computers and that another download release is planned in April for the 2006 movie "Lonely Hearts." ClickStar is not disclosing the numbers of downloads.
Intel has three main content partners featured on its Web site: AOL Video on Demand, NBC Universal and Eros International, a producer of Bollywood films. Eros is offering a downloadable version of its new film, "I See You." AOL offers the most Viiv-certified content. While it is not exclusively for Viiv systems, an AOL executive said, the content looks better on a Viiv PC and is especially designed for viewing on a large TV screen from 10 feet away.
"The promise of Viiv is to solve the problem for consumers of how they move content ... from the PC in their home office to the plasma in their living room," said Fred McIntyre, senior vice president of AOL Video.
So far, that promise is still in the distance. Analysts also said the launch of Viiv PCs in 2006 was hampered by the delay of the consumer version of Microsoft's Vista operating system, which contains more multimedia functions than earlier versions of Windows.
Viiv-labeled PCs are part of the growing market for home entertainment PCs. Advanced Micro Devices, Intel's archrival, also has its own copycat entertainment PC initiative, called AMD Live!, launched a few months after Viiv. The Viiv and AMD Live! computers are among the home computers known as "media center" PCs.
According to IDC, in 2006, the first year Viiv and AMD Live PCs were launched, revenues of all media center PCs grew modestly to $5.9 billion from $5.4 billion in 2005.
This year, IDC expects revenues to more than double to $11.5 billion in 2007, driven by higher PC prices and the consumer launch of Vista in January.
"The traditional desktop PC as we know it is no longer interesting," said David Daoud, an analyst with IDC. "You see that major growth will come from these more capable systems."
The basic components of a Viiv PC are included on a motherboard designed for PC makers. This high-end multimedia PC includes an Intel processor and technologies for graphics processing, high-definition audio and high-speed storage, 3-D realism, and sharp video playback, among other features.
A remote control and a TV tuner card are optional, but Intel said many PC makers are including TV tuners into PCs now. A built-in TV tuner card will let consumers record live TV onto the hard drive of the PC.
But if a consumer wants to watch enhanced or exclusive Viiv content on a digital TV screen, it is not so simple. Intel said only a few PC makers, such as Hewlett-Packard and Sony, make PCs that can be connected directly into the TV. Users can purchase a tower system, like a mini server, and use a specially equipped set-top box to view their content.
One step in this direction is Intel's deal with DirecTV, which just launched its own Viiv-certified digital video recorder. Later this year, DirecTV will offer the ability to stream video from an Intel Viiv PC via the DirecTV digital video recorder.
Kim said Intel has made inroads with reluctant content developers and that now there is an explosion of content on the Web, in part due to sites like YouTube, and companies like Intel that are creating partnerships.
"The content dam has been broken on the Internet," Kim said.
"Viiv is the best audio-video PC out of the box," he added. "Our acceptance in the marketplace has been solid."
But Viiv will continue to evolve, he said.
But he said there still needs to be even fatter, faster broadband connections so that consumers can send content from other parts of the house to their TV. "But it requires time," he said.
The second half of 2007 should prove more telling on how new Viiv-PCs fare among consumers.
"In the second half of the year, you will see a new generation of products," said Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group in San Jose. "A combination of good skills and funding can actually fix this."
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/
The computer they were looking at had a small "Intel Viiv" logo. Parilla was very familiar with Intel, but not Viiv. "I don't know what that is. I have no idea," Parilla said. "I haven't seen it on TV."
Parilla is not alone. In the same Fry's, where Silicon Valley's geeks love to shop, several people looking at home PCs had no idea what the purple, pink and orange Viiv logo meant or how it was pronounced (it rhymes with five). Two assumed it was the name of an Intel chip. One Fry's salesman called it "V2V."
And so it goes for Intel's Viiv brand, which has not created much of a buzz since its splashy launch in 2006.
Viiv is a brand campaign and set of technologies all rolled into one - what Intel calls a technology "platform." The Santa Clara chip giant launched Viiv to kick-start a new wave of home entertainment PCs for watching and listening to state-of-the-art movies, music and other digital content.
But so far, Viiv's lackluster reception among consumers is a far cry from the success Intel enjoyed with "Intel Inside," the 1990s campaign that made Intel a household name, and with its Centrino brand for wireless computing.
"The Viiv logo has not achieved the word-of-mouth association that Centrino did nine months after its launch," said Rick Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group in Seaford, N.Y. "The first year after Centrino, it was almost synonymous with wireless computing."
Intel executives bristle at comparisons with Centrino, the company's first platform pitch, launched in 2003 with a $300 million marketing campaign. Centrino combined an Intel Pentium M chip for mobile computing, two chipsets and a networking card, built into a laptop for an easy-to-use wireless connection. The company also heavily promoted certified hardware and hot spots, or wireless-ready locations. And Intel created an ecosystem of partners, including computer makers and service providers.
Eric Kim, the Intel marketing guru in charge of Viiv, said comparisons with Centrino are not valid.
"I know a lot of people want to com Indeed, the wireless capability of Centrino is easy to understand.
But Viiv comes across as an amorphous concept that encompasses both a group of technologies and content.
"The specific benefit from Viiv is difficult for people to understand," said Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group. "Without question, Intel has throttled back its ambitions with Viiv."
Intel said it has partnerships with 150 content providers to provide either exclusive content or content that runs better on a Viiv-certified PC. But the problem is that Viiv PCs do not yet easily connect to high-definition TVs, which many believe is the holy grail of the totally digital living room.
When Viiv was first launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2006, Intel described it as the catalyst for digital home entertainment, delivered through the Internet and played on a variety of gadgets. But consumer electronics makers still dominate the living room with their ever-growing plasma big-screen television sets and set-top boxes, and the PC is still relegated to the den.
As all content goes digital, computer makers want to make the PC the hub for all digital entertainment - or at least convince consumers to store all of their movies, TV shows, home videos, photos and music on the PC. And Hollywood wants to retain rights to its movies and music.
So Viiv offers some ways to help ease Hollywood's fears of piracy - by having creators develop content exclusively for the Viiv platform.
As part of its Hollywood initiative, Intel invested in ClickStar, a digital entertainment venture headed by actor Morgan Freeman and producer Lori McCreary. At the 2006 CES, Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini trotted out Freeman and other actors and filmmakers, including Danny DeVito and Tom Hanks, to promote Viiv. ClickStar offers first-run films for consumers to download, before they are released to DVD.
Erik Bright, a spokesman for ClickStar, said Freeman's movie "10 Items or Less" is now available for consumers to download to Viiv computers and that another download release is planned in April for the 2006 movie "Lonely Hearts." ClickStar is not disclosing the numbers of downloads.
Intel has three main content partners featured on its Web site: AOL Video on Demand, NBC Universal and Eros International, a producer of Bollywood films. Eros is offering a downloadable version of its new film, "I See You." AOL offers the most Viiv-certified content. While it is not exclusively for Viiv systems, an AOL executive said, the content looks better on a Viiv PC and is especially designed for viewing on a large TV screen from 10 feet away.
"The promise of Viiv is to solve the problem for consumers of how they move content ... from the PC in their home office to the plasma in their living room," said Fred McIntyre, senior vice president of AOL Video.
So far, that promise is still in the distance. Analysts also said the launch of Viiv PCs in 2006 was hampered by the delay of the consumer version of Microsoft's Vista operating system, which contains more multimedia functions than earlier versions of Windows.
Viiv-labeled PCs are part of the growing market for home entertainment PCs. Advanced Micro Devices, Intel's archrival, also has its own copycat entertainment PC initiative, called AMD Live!, launched a few months after Viiv. The Viiv and AMD Live! computers are among the home computers known as "media center" PCs.
According to IDC, in 2006, the first year Viiv and AMD Live PCs were launched, revenues of all media center PCs grew modestly to $5.9 billion from $5.4 billion in 2005.
This year, IDC expects revenues to more than double to $11.5 billion in 2007, driven by higher PC prices and the consumer launch of Vista in January.
"The traditional desktop PC as we know it is no longer interesting," said David Daoud, an analyst with IDC. "You see that major growth will come from these more capable systems."
The basic components of a Viiv PC are included on a motherboard designed for PC makers. This high-end multimedia PC includes an Intel processor and technologies for graphics processing, high-definition audio and high-speed storage, 3-D realism, and sharp video playback, among other features.
A remote control and a TV tuner card are optional, but Intel said many PC makers are including TV tuners into PCs now. A built-in TV tuner card will let consumers record live TV onto the hard drive of the PC.
But if a consumer wants to watch enhanced or exclusive Viiv content on a digital TV screen, it is not so simple. Intel said only a few PC makers, such as Hewlett-Packard and Sony, make PCs that can be connected directly into the TV. Users can purchase a tower system, like a mini server, and use a specially equipped set-top box to view their content.
One step in this direction is Intel's deal with DirecTV, which just launched its own Viiv-certified digital video recorder. Later this year, DirecTV will offer the ability to stream video from an Intel Viiv PC via the DirecTV digital video recorder.
Kim said Intel has made inroads with reluctant content developers and that now there is an explosion of content on the Web, in part due to sites like YouTube, and companies like Intel that are creating partnerships.
"The content dam has been broken on the Internet," Kim said.
"Viiv is the best audio-video PC out of the box," he added. "Our acceptance in the marketplace has been solid."
But Viiv will continue to evolve, he said.
But he said there still needs to be even fatter, faster broadband connections so that consumers can send content from other parts of the house to their TV. "But it requires time," he said.
The second half of 2007 should prove more telling on how new Viiv-PCs fare among consumers.
"In the second half of the year, you will see a new generation of products," said Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group in San Jose. "A combination of good skills and funding can actually fix this."
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/
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