All Things Digital

So, TiVo’s on-again, off-again relationship with DirecTV? It’s on again. After ditching the TiVo (TIVO) platform in Feb. 2007 for a competing personal video recorder made by sister company NDS Group (NNDS), DirecTV (DTV) has circled back to embrace the PVR pioneer’s platform once again. This morning the two companies announced plans to build a version of TiVo’s PVR that can capture DirecTV’s entire lineup of digital and high-def channels. The device will arrive at market by 2009, when it will be offered alongside DirecTV’s existing line of set-top boxes.

Why the sudden interest in a renewed partnership? Could be the recent change in management at DirecTV, which was taken over by Liberty Media (LINTA) in an $11 billion asset swap with News Corp. (NWS) (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and of this Web site). Or could it be that DirecTV simply saw the writing on the wall after TiVo successfully sued Dish for infringing on its patented time-warp technology?

Perhaps a little of both, hmm?

Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie has finally published the sequel to “The Internet Services Disruption,” the 2005 potboiler of a memo that charted Microsoft’s (MSFT) better-late-than-never software-as-a-service strategy. It’s called, intriguingly, “Services Strategy Update April 2008” and it describes in numbing detail Live Mesh, Microsoft’s ambitiously late entry into a rapidly growing cloud-computing market.

Live Mesh, though it takes Ozzie five pages to describe it, is essentially a “software-plus-services” platform that uses the Web to synchronize and share data among devices, applications and people (you’ll find a walk-through here and a good overview here).

“Over the past ten years, the PC era has given way to an era in which the Web is at the center of our experiences–experiences delivered not just through the browser but also through many different devices including PCs, phones, media players, game consoles, set-top boxes and televisions, cars, and more,” Ozzie writes. “It is our mission in this new era to create compelling, seamless experiences that combine the power of the Internet, with the magic of software, across a world of devices. … the Web is the hub of our social mesh and our device mesh.”

“The Web is the hub of our social mesh and our device mesh.”

Wait.

Does Bill Gates know that? Because last year he told CNN’s “American Morning,” “We’re making the PC the place where it all comes together.” Clearly, in the ensuing year, Gates and Microsoft noticed that Google (GOOG) et al. are fast shifting computational relevancy to the Web, away from the desktop and, more importantly, away from Microsoft.

Live Mesh, if it’s successful, will change that. Because, as Joe Wilcox notes over at Microsoft Watch, “Live Mesh is Microsoft’s attempt to turn operating system and proprietary services platforms into hubs that replace the Web. Microsoft is building a services-based operating system that transcends and extends Windows and also the function of Web browsers.” Adds Wilcox, “It’s bold, brilliant and downright scary.”

It appears there may be a bit of a boxing match shaping up between Apple and Netflix. Amid reports that Apple has inked a video-on-demand deal with Twentieth Century Fox, Netflix has announced plans to develop a set-top box that will give consumers the ability to stream movies directly from the Internet to HDTVs. The DVD-by-mail pioneer has enlisted South Korean manufacturer LG Electronics to build a set-top box that will extend its Watch Instantly online movie-delivery service from the PC to the TV. Netflix plans to offer the service–expected to roll out in the fall–for free to its subscribers and the box for a price that’s yet to be announced.

“We think we have solved the real fundamental problem, which has been that choosing movies on a television has been extremely challenging,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told the New York Times. “Video-on-demand companies worked at it for a long time, but choosing movies on the TV just doesn’t have the power of the Web. We want to be integrated on every Internet-connected device, game system, high-definition DVD player and dedicated Internet set-top box. Eventually, as TVs have wireless connectivity built into them, we’ll integrate right into the television.”

A compelling vision of Netflix’s future and one that may sound the death knell for Blockbuster, Amazon’s Unbox and Vudu as well. Or perhaps not. Certainly, this little bit of legalese at the tail-end of the press release announcing the services belies Hastings’s optimism just a wee bit.

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding the development of a set-top box for delivery of content over the Internet to television sets, the delivery of a compelling online home entertainment service, Netflix’s strategy and positioning in online delivery of content, and the future of Internet to the television. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ, including, without limitation; the risk that the development of the set-top box or its associated online delivery service may not meet technical requirements, consumer expectations, or otherwise be implemented by the parties; that certain studios will not grant either of the parties necessary rights or otherwise impose limitations on such rights that might impede implementation or hamper consumer adoption; Netflix’s ability to create other partnership opportunities for the delivery of digital content to the television; and possible technological or content licensing impediments.”