According to Bloomberg, Amazon has decided to compete against Apple and Google in the set-top-box market and the e-commerce giant is looking to launch its own set-top-box so it could also stream content from its Video on Demand store. Here is the excerpt from Bloomberg’s latest report: “They say the box will plug into TVs and give users access to Amazon’s expanding video offerings. Those include it’s a la carte Video on Demand store, which features newer films and TV shows, and its Instant Video service, which is free for subscribers to the Amazon Prime two-day shipping package. The Amazon set-top box will compete with similar products like the Roku, Apple TV and the Boxee Cloud DVR, along with more versatile devices like the Playstation 3 and the Xbox. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.”
It is said that Amazon has developed the alleged device at its Cupertino-based labs and could release it this fall. The project is supposedly being led by an ex-employee of Cisco and Apple. “The project is being run by Malachy Moynihan, a former vice president of emerging video products at Cisco (CSCO) who worked on the networking company’s various consumer video initiatives. Moynihan also spent nine years at Apple (AAPL) during the 1980s and 1990s.” Besides Moynihan, it is said that Amazon has put some other influential engineers on this project as well, which includes an former TiVo and Vudop worker and a former ReplayTV designer of hardware. Maybe because of this alleged set-top-box Amazon and Apple were not able to reach a deal for streaming Amazon’s content over Apple TV.
However, since this report has not received any sort of confirmation, therefore readers should not hold their breath for the time being and just put this alleged device in the rumour pile. Amazon has not launched its Kindle Fire tablet in Canada so resident should not expect to receive the top box any time soon if it does make it to production. In addition to this, several other products from the multinational e-commerce company have also not arrived in the North American country. Therefore, even if the above mentioned report turns out to be true there are not very bright chances that Amazon will make its set-top-box available in the country.
Although, recently Amazon has shown some positive signs by releasing its Kindle eBook Store, Prime program and Kindle Paperwhite in Canada. This indicates that the US-based company has not completely forgotten us Canadians.
Source: iPhoneinCanada, 9to5Google
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