Youview - Has Sugar dropped the ball on this one

To me this seems like a really odd mistake by Alan Sugar. He has come up with a £300 device that allows you to basically watch catch up TV without a computer.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/04/late-expensive-and-probably-redundant-youview-finally-launches-uk-digital-tv-service/

This functionality is now basically standard on todays TVs, its built in to every console and is provided on most Sky/Virgin boxes. So what use is this £300 device that also needs a wifi adaptor? In the press release they went on to say the device would be under £100 in a couple of years.

I can see this sticking to the shelves

I am not getting Sugar at all since the home computers. The Em@iler made similarly little sense and I'm not sure what he has got right since the late 80s.

Agreed - sounds like it was a good-ish idea when they thought it up a couple of years but took too long to get from the drawing board to production.

So long as you're organised enough to set recoding in advance, a Freesat box with hard drive starts at around half the price.

For me, catch up is good if I've missed the start of the series but the BBC etc let me do that most of the time. Dave covers the rest, seemingly forever

I have never liked the guy since he killed off the Sinclair QL computer which I had taken 6 months writing a CAD program for...

I therefore never trust him or what he says

/30yeargrudgesrock

Failure was my initial reaction, and then I think about the em@iler - apparently it has done very well in a niche market. It is just that we don't hear a massive amount about it because it is not mainstream.

The market for the SMART TVs, Apple TVs Sky+, TiVos is huge, a small segment of that may well be worth having.

Having said that, it is 2 or 3 years behind schedule, which could negate all that

PS loss making companies in the group can always be useful :-)

Looking at this a different way, isnt this the same as the Apple TV which sells for £99 and has been around for a few years.

Not only does YouView look expensive for what it is, when Apple get around to putting apps on their Apple TV it will be game over for YouView

And how long has that been going. It is surprising just how many people are still using them (including me). So useful. The QL was mentioned. Fond memories. I ran a factory stock control system on one of those :-) Great fun.

Gary

Yep, fully agree, they've dropped the ball with this one, especially as Google TV is fast approaching as well as no doubt an Apple solution in the near future.

that Sugar bloke will never make it! He obviously doesnt know what hes doing!

This gets even more interesting as rumours are around that BSkyB (Sky) might buy TalkTalk at some point. 

(http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/market-round-up-bskybs-mooted-bid-for-talktalk-gets-city-tongues-wagging-7917310.html It's the evening Standard, maybe not the best source)

It may not be Lord Sugars idea but he is the one claiming it will have a big an impact on British Television as the launch of BSkyB. Mind you the BBC director is claiming it is cutting edge as well. There is nothing unique or cutting edge about it, its an overpriced media streamer with a freeview box strapped to it.

The Guardian report does nothing than suggest that it will just stick to the shelves. Take the statement "A spokesman for YouView said the company did not know how many units the retailers had ordered of the Humax box, but that it was a substantial number.". How can a business like this not know the size of the orders, especially when the report goes on to say there are only 6 companies selling it.

Maybe its because the BBC and the others are claiming its cutting edge as they have spent £70 million building a massive white elephant. There is nothing new in the product and it has been done better and cheaper by others for a few years now. They have to try and get their money back somehow.

The only way I can see this being a success is if the partners (C4, BBC etc) just constantly bombard us with adverts for it for the next year or so.

I don't know. I am willing to be sceptical, but to declare it a flop before we know all the details is maybe a lttle quick.

Gareth compared it to GoggleTV. Their only current device is a Sony media stramer w/o harddisk, hence it is a lot cheaper. Est shipping (USA first) Oct 2012. The price point for media streamers is around £100 (say Western Digital TV). We can compare those to the GoogleTV/Sony thing.

This YouView thing is more. Rather to be compared with a Virgin or Sky box. Where are Sky or Virgin way ahead? Serious question.

Only 6 companies selling it, well, yes but these are all major chains. Who else needs to sell it? Or how many do we need that it won't flop?
Who in this situation would reveal how many devices have been ordered, of course they KNOW, they just don't want to tell us.

YouView has two distinctive advantages, it works with ANY broadband and it doesn't need a subscription, we'll see if that is enough to get a market share or not.

Let go away from the actual device: I think the future in TV market lies in the access-rights to content, not on the transmission technology. Who is the leader for content? The answer has to be, it depends. Sport is different from soaps or documentaries.