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Originally published on 03/25/2002
Moxi cofounder Steve Perlman was upbeat at a March 19 MIT-Stanford Venture Lab panel discussing the future of personal video recorders (PVRs). He shrugged off queries about his company's financial health with quips like "Startups are always running out of cash" and assured the audience that he could fund Moxi from his own personal wealth, if necessary. That's not much of a business plan.
Fast Facts:
Moxi
www.moxi.com |
| CEO |
Rita Brogley. Last job: Director, Microsoft TV, Europe |
| HQ |
Palo Alto, CA |
| Employees |
115 |
| Product |
Media server platform |
| Funding |
$67M; lead investor AOL Time Warner |
| Profitable |
No |
| Runway |
"Exploring a variety of funding options" |
| History |
Moxi was founded in Jan. 2000 by Steve Perlman, who previously cofounded Web TV; currently he is vice-chair of Moxi's board. |
Moxi's real economic model is unusual. For starters, it's based on the fact that a large percentage of cable and satellite television consumers install more than one set-top box in their homes. A single Moxi box is about $425, arguably too expensive for cable operators to consider. But a Moxi satellite unit, which uses the main box as its tuner, hard disk, and communications platform, costs only $75, bringing the cost of a two-TV Moxi setup within sight of a two-box digital cable or satellite installation.
Stewart Alsop, who chaired the panel (and who is on TiVo's board of directors), points out that cable and satellite companies base their plans on ARPU, average revenue per unit. Moxi will have to drive ARPU higher, by enabling revenues based on the sale of music, movies, or from shopping. But even if it can do this, cable operators will be slow to change. Already, Scientific-Atlanta has installed 12 million interactive-capable cable boxes (not quite PVRs, but a good interim solution), yet few users have access to much more than electronic program guides because cable operators haven't implemented the features. The satellite companies are more aggressive, but Doug McGary, EchoStar's director of interactive services, confirmed that PVR uptake is far below what he would like to see; most consumers opt for cheaper tuner-only set-top boxes.
Moxi has a fantastic product, but it's got to outlast poor consumer understanding of its product category, a glacial development cycle in the cable companies, and entrenched set-top box vendors. It will take a very long time for Moxi to succeed.
- Rafe Needleman
email: rafe-needleman@catchoday.com
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