Intel Scales Back On Viiv Digital Living Room Branding; Banks on MID Mobile Devices
By Rafat Ali - Fri 14 Dec 2007 07:44 PM PST
About two years into its splashy CES 2006 debut, Intel (NSDQ: INTC) is scaling back on its digital living room brand Viiv. This was Intel’s attempt at branding entertainment/multimedia-heavy computers, with content deals with major content providers to stream in content onto these PCs. It included Intel-developed media software and joint work with content companies to certify that movies and other video fare delivered over the Internet worked well with a remote control and looked good on a TV screen.
We reported a year ago that Viiv had struggled to gain traction with consumers despite the heavy marketing. One of the major reasons was that the explosion in online multimedia means people haven’t needed Viiv to get content the way it was envisioned at first.
Now WSJ reports that at a briefing in San Francisco to discuss plans for this year’s CES show, Intel said it will drop the idea of promoting the Viiv brand on Internet video programming and living-room devices that connect to TV sets. Instead, it will become a lot more boring: They will be labeled Intel Core 2 with Viiv technology, for the dual-core chip. Viiv’s history, in links, below.
Instead, at this year’s CES, it is banking on the creation of “MIDs”, for mobile Internet devices....those slightly larger than today’s cellphones, which it thinks doesn’t come close to the full multimedia experience that can be delivered to portable devices. The company hopes to promote slightly larger gadgets, using its chips, that fit in a jacket pocket but deliver a full Web experience. Has been tried before, by the likes of Nokia (NYSE: NOK) with its N800.
Posted in: Gadgets
