akimbo

Shuttered Akimbo looking for buyer

Dan O'Shea — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:15:02 -0400

Akimbo, a video set-top box vendor turned white-label video content firm that was involved in AT&T's Homezone service, is shutting down and looking for a buyer, according to GigaOM's NewTeeVee. AT&T also had invested in Akimbo. So did Cisco Systems, along with some prominent venture capital firms.

Akimbo's fortunes were looking pretty bright back in 2006 when AT&T seemed to be betting strong on DSL-based HomeZone and taking it slow with fiber-based Project Lightspeed. However, it could not make the set-top business work and has been adjusting its business model ever since. Those adjustments toward white-label video publishing apparently netted Akimbo a modest amount of new financing earlier this year (a round which again reportedly included AT&T), but the company announced at the beginning of May that it was laying off several people.

For more:
- check out this post at NewTeeVee

Related articles:
- Akimbo announced the white-label business model back in March. Akimbo report
- Cisco and AT&T invest in Akimbo. Akimbo report

New video delivery partnership

Tom Burton — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:59:10 -0400

Fresh from a $55 million VC injection, Highwinds is teaming up with Digital Rapids and Knack Networks to promote a turnkey video delivery system for media companies looking for a complete solution. The turnkey offering follows an announcement last week from Akimbo it would be offering a white label solution also to media companies looking to outsource their webcasting technology. Both deals are assuming media companies are now ready to put their video content online.

The partnership will use Highwinds' content delivery network infrastructure; Digital Rapids' media capture, encoding, transcoding, protection, streaming and delivery hardware and software; and Knack Networks' universal interface platform which enables companies to source, store, protect, monetize, manage and distribute IPTV programming across an array of channels.

Highwind recently closed a $55 million round of equity financing led by General Catalyst Partners and Alta Communications. The financing will fund the infrastructure build-out of Highwinds' RollingThunder network, including a content delivery network offering which the company said it would unveiling at this weeks IPTV World Forum.

For more:
- Highwind partners with Digital Rapids and Knack Release

Related articles:
Akimbo offers white label solution Article
Cisco and AT&T invest in Akimbo Article

Netflix and LG go for video on demand

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:59:30 -0500

The fight for the TV consumer is being played out at several levels with video in the post provider Netflix abandoning its own set-top box ambitions and announcing it would go with a box to be built by Korean CE giant, LG Electronics.

The box will enable Netflix to migrate its 7 million DVD subscribers to a networked HD streaming service beginning mid this year. No pricing was released ad the move follows Netflix tentative step into the internet download game with its Watch now service that streams a limited number of movies to customer PCs.

The move suggests the DVD business has definitely seen its best days as video on demand services inevitably take over from physical media, although the history of pure play video on demand businesses has not been brilliant to date. Retail giant Wal-mart lasted less than a year with its download service, closing it in the run up to the holiday season. Another start up, Akimbo also decided the market was not ready when it abandoned its proprietary box last year and the Cisco/Intel backed MovieBeam also quietly withdrew from the market last month with less than 1,800 subscribers.

For More:
- LG Electronics and Netflix to stream movies to the TV Release
- Netflix and LG partner for streaming HDTV content Article

Related articles:
- Datacasting experiment ends in tears Report
- Jackass 2.5 movie debuts online first Report

Wireless set-top startup Building B launches

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 06:59:10 -0400

A new outfit dubbed Building B unleashed its PR machine last week to let folks know about its box that streams video to the TV without a PC. The Belmont, Calif., startup has $17.5 million in seed money from Morgenthaler Venture, Omni Capital, Index Ventures and others.

Principals include co-founders Bruno Pati and Phil Wiser, former chief technology officer at Sony. The board includes SonyBMG Music Chairman (and former NBC executive) Andy Lack; Bob Pavey of Morgenthaler; and Arun Netravali of Omni Capital.

BB has the names to drop, but specs about the box have yet to emerge. It's unclear if this company's gizmo has the technological chops to do what Apple, Moviebeam, Amino, Akimbo and others haven't been able to do.

For More:
- Om Malek says Building B has some hurdles ahead here
- Rafat Ali is slightly harsher at paidContent.org, here
- Building B's own site is here

Is adult content interactivity's killer app?

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 18:50:43 -0500

The second keynote panel's moderator, Bernadine Arnason of the Pivot Group, broke down Internet TV content into three categories: 1)Home Video 2)Episodic 3)Semi- and professional content The list was quite similar to the one I just mentioned from Blip.tv's Mike Hudack, however, Akimbo's CEO Josh Goldman said movies and adult content should each be their own separate category, too. After Goldman made the comment Dave.tv's COO Grey Gaskins leaned away from him, in a symbolic effort to distance himself from the adult content comment, only to garner a few laughs, of course. However, it's a fair point: Adult content made the VCR a success by most accounts, the Internet a success by many accounts and according to some friends in the mobile content industry over in the U.K., it's driving the mobile broadband business over there. Perhaps that's where all this interactivity will come in for IPTV? If the telcos wanted to it could become the differentiator from cable services they are supposedly looking for, but I don't blame them for leaning away at the prospect. Hopefully the market won't either.

Cisco rubber stamps VOD, place/time shifting

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:01:30 -0400

In yet another consumer-centric aquisition by the infrastructure giant, Cisco has scooped up video on demand and place/time shifting start-up Arroyo Video Solutions for an estimated $92 million in cash. Insiders say that the recent aquisition brings the company's total investment in its new consumer-centric direction to about $6 billion, following its acquisitions of Linksys, KISS Technology and Scientific Atlanta. Cisco also made investments in Akimbo and Cinema Now. Arroyo is the perfect addition to Cisco's growing IPTV solution since its technologies enable consumers to access web video on all three screens: TV, PC and mobile handset. The company is also a leader in the so-called networked personal video recorder (nPVR) market.

Some say the acquisition is a direct counter-attack to Microsoft's IPTV solution, which also claims to offer cross-platform shifting among Microsoft OS-based devices. Motorola also has some place-shifting and time shifting technologies. It's also important to note that the company bought Arroyo in an all-cash deal, a rare move for Cisco, which usually opts for stock deals. The cash shows just how serious Cisco is about this deal.

For more on Cisco's sanctioning of VOD and time/place shifting:
- see this smart commentary from GigaOM

Cisco, AT&T invest $15.5M in Akimbo

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:01:00 -0400

Cisco has followed-up on its splashy entrance into the IPTV sector last year by investing in set-top box (STB) maker Akimbo. Cisco and AT&T along with returning investors raised $15.5 million for the IPTV start-up. Akimbo retails a STB for $69.99 plus a monthly fee of $9.99, which allows subscribers to download content from Akimbo's library of 10,000 movies via the users' broadband connections. AT&T's investment is no surprise since the start-up is providing the STB's for the service provider's Homezone service, which is scheduled to launch later this summer.

For more on Akimbo's VC round:
- read this article from CBR Online