Rich Fiscus
11 Nov 2011 13:03
Speaking to an audience of investors and industry analysts, Logitech Chairman Guerrino De Luca announced the company's Google TV set-top box, the Revue, will be discontinued once the existing stock is sold.
It will not be replaced by another product. Instead Logitech will get out of the set-top box market for the forseeable future.
Their primary mistake with the Revue, in De Luca's estimation, was not the decision to support Google in the venture, but rather the scope of his company's commitment to an immature business. He said he would do it again, but "with a significantly smaller and more prudent approach."
"It's not a mistake of intention, It's not a mistake of strategy," said De Luca, "It's a mistake of implementation of gigantic nature."
He blamed a backlash from content providers for the overall failure of Google TV so far:
Google TV is a great concept. Google TV has the potential to completely disrupt the living room, except that that was not the case when we launched Logitech Revue. Logitech Revue was launched with some... software that was definitely not complete and was not tuned to what the consumers wanted in the living room, let alone the issues with content delivery that the threat, or the perceived threat, Google poses to other content providers generated.
Google TV or the child of Google TV or the grandchild of Google TV will happen. The integration of television and Internet is inevitable. But the idea that it would happen overnight in Christmas 2010 was very misguided and also cost us dearly.