What a ridiculously bold, unfounded, and unnecessary assessment. There's not a single opinion stated in there that's based on fact.
Bold yes, ridiculously so I guess that is a matter of opinion, my philosophy is if you are going to say something mean it and if you mean it might as well be bold about it.
Unfounded not at all, merely looking at the recent history of Apple devices; MP3 players many had huge market share and there was a first to market in that space, enter the iPod; mobile phone/PDA market many market dominators, enter the iPhone and it raced to the number 3 spot and effectively killed the PDA. Apple has a strong history of dominating markets and if a company is going to play in a market that Apple might even think of entering you need to make your product strong.
Unnecessary assessment I disagree, if my department is looking to expend its limited recourses on a platform, it is not enough to merely look at past and current market share. I must look forward to the future of the market; I need to find some way to try and determine which platform will allow for the greatest growth of my product. That will require some educated guesses, based on what information can be gathered about the intensions of the producers of the platforms in question. I will also look to try and guess about changes that I deem to be wise business decisions and expect the wise people running each company to come to those same conclusions.
While I would agree that it's inevitable that Apple will release an app store for the Apple TV, it's taken them over 6 months to update the firmware for the iPad, what makes you think they'll update the Apple TV in the "not too distant future"? And even if they did, there will still be a fair wait for new apps to be developed and approved for the device.
I believe that the app store will be a quick turn around based on two factors. First market pressure, both Google TV and Roku have installable applications/channels with commerce systems built in. Apple cannot afford to allow Google and to some extent Roku to offer the significant advantage of a extensive app market. Second they do not have to update the firmware to add an app store, they just need to create a non-touch centric interface to the existing app store. As for turnaround for applications, developers were releasing updated apps for the Retina display and the iPad form factor the week after the release of each device.
In my opinion the biggest hurdle to releasing an app store for the Apple TV is the updated SDK that will be needed to handle the new display format and updates to handle the input of the remote along with the general UI guidelines apple publishes.
The first generation Apple TV is still more expensive than the new Apple TV, and there were 4 years between the two. What makes you think they'll release a new version in under a year? And if it's as good as you seem to think it will be, why would they need to?
The first generation Apple TV was a completely different beast; it was essentially a Mac Mini and accordingly was priced similarly. The new apple TV is essentially an iPod touch. Go back and look at the price reduction history on other iOS based devices; the previous generation tends to see a significant price break if it is not out right discontinued. Apple has reason to get a $59.00 device out there, killing the competition and pricing the previous generation at or below your competition’s prices is a great way to do that with out impacting your bottom line.
Do you have some information that no one else does? The current Google TV is $299. What makes you think there will be a $200 price drop anytime soon?
I have no information about an impending $99.00 Google TV set-top box. I only have speculation based on a couple of observations. The Logitech Revue seems ridiculously priced for the set-top market space; Apple could barely sell them at $199. In general the sweet spot for pricing a consumer electronics component (not counting high buck items like TVs, Sound Systems, etc...) is $99 and there are already 2 devices in the market at that price. Consumers are just not going to pay $299 for a Google TV set-top box, based on the market the only way a Google TV set-top box will be successful is to make one at the $99.00 price point. Therefore some company will either make a $99 Google TV set-top box or there will be no successful Google TV set-top box and we will only see Google TV integrated into new televisions.
Roku already has a retail strategy, via their partnership with Netgear. The Netgear Roku boxes are already available at Fry's, and will soon be available at Best Buy and other big box stores.
If this is true then Roku needs to update their F.A.Q.
http://support.roku.com/entries/221209- ... eb-outlets My belief of there not being a retail strategy is based off of information gleaned from the website, as any other consumer would. This also sounds less like a retail strategy and more like a licensing strategy. Having said that a solid licensing strategy could be just as effective as a retail strategy.
Roku has already hinted at major interface updates coming. That aside, I personally find the current Apple TV Netflix interface to be very cumbersome and unfriendly. Otherwise the interface elsewhere is nothing but a black screen with cover art and reflections, with a soft blue glow around black buttons. I'm not really sure what's "high end" or "rich" about that, but ok...
When I speak of an OpenGL based interface that ALLOWS for FAST and high end graphical interfaces I am not only talking about the OS interface but what can be created when one uses the graphical elements exposes for creating one’s own application.
Speaking to the OS interface, the first comparison any consumer is going to make is how it looks and even though that Apple TV interface is very simple it is very shiny. The second impression they are going to get is speed and perceived smoothness of the interface and the Apple TV has that hands down, the interface is fast and the transitions are smooth and appealing. By comparison the Roku interface is painfully slow and jerky.
But beyond the basic OS interface, what the OS offers to developers to create “high end” interfaces is where the Roku really falls down. The best you get is some 2D graphics surfaces that can be updated about 5 times per second. Outside of that you get some generic list interface constructs and static splash pages. Just not very compelling for third party companies who wish to have significant control of the look and feel of their product.
Have you developed using the Android and iOS SDKs?
I have developed for iOS my self and have many friends who develop for Android. I can create an application with equivalent complexity to a Roko channel in less than a day with the iOS SDK, but in a week I can create an iOS application with quite a lot more functionality than any Roku channel with richer custom interfaces, and many back end functions that are not even provided by the Roku SDK. Arguably you can make the Roku do some things that don’t come out of the box but they are very difficult to get to work and take a lot more time that equivalent functionality that comes out of the box with the iOS SDK. Those friends of mine that develop for Android seem to be able to build things even faster than similar applications using the iOS SDK.
All of that aside, the OP asked about current Roku market share, not where you personally think Roku will be in a year. With nearly a million devices sold, I think they have a pretty significant lead on any competitive devices, especially when those devices haven't even been available for a month yet...
Yes the OP did ask about the current market share, but as I stated earlier in this post, I believe that one must look to the future of a platform before spending valuable resources on it. As for the million devices sold, that is not really a significant install base as far a platforms go. The Apple TV sold out in the first week, how many devices do you think that is? My guess would be some where between 250,000 and 500,000. If I am correct that would mean that in about one month Apple TV has created an install base of 25%-50% of the Roku install base. Given that the original Apple TV (which sucked by the way) was selling almost 1 million units per year, it is very likely that the Apple TV 2 will sell quite a bit more than 1 million per year.
