Why did PowerTV wait until last week to license Personal Java from Sun Microsystems Inc for use on its cable set-top operating system of the same name (CI No 3,385)? Because it got it a knock- down price. Supposedly a factor of four times less expensive than the single digit price a bevy of companies including Alcatel, Nortel and Samsung paid to license Personal Java at the end of last year (CI No 3,233). A good price wasn’t the Cupertino, California-based company’s only incentive though: after months of Sun’s many promises and few deliverables, PowerTV says Microsoft Corp’s activity in the Java and embedded spaces finally galvanized Sun into action. Moreover, a little-noticed part of PowerTV’s Personal Java agreement is Sun’s licensing of the PowerTV operating system. Now why, when Sun is plumbing the recently acquired ChorusOS real-time operating system into all of its embedded system software offerings would it want PowerTV d’you suppose? Sun apparently hasn’t identified a use for the operating system yet – it doesn’t plan to make set-top boxes – though we assume it’s a fall back if Chorus can’t walk the walk. Then again maybe it’ll use PowerTV to leverage the recent JavaTV class libraries it recently announced which were co-developed with PowerTV and which PowerTV is to integrate into its operating system. Maybe Sun might even fork out for PowerTV like it did for Chorus Systemes SA. PowerTV’s Java implementation will be an optional add-on for its OEMs, not all are expected to pick it up like Scientific-Atlanta Inc has done. As Secure Sockets Layer and Picture rating technology becomes a value proposition PowerTV expects to add them into future releases of its systems software. They currently work at the browser and application level.

Blowing smoke

PowerTV’s pleased as punch with the nine set-top wins it’s so-far garnered for its real-time operating system of the same name, but the Kaleida Labs spin-out finds it hardly surprising given it’s had the thing working on a variety of chip architectures more than two years now. It claims to be the only company to provide interactive television services such as programming guides and channel tuning in the native operating system code for use on set-top boxes. Because 90% of the infrastructure required to develop set-top applications is already in the operating system – support for television and audio, HTML and JavaScript – with Dynamic HTML to come soon – ISVs only have to go the extra 10%, it believes. PowerTV spent two years whittling Spyglass Inc’s 2Mb web browser down to 400Kb for use on set-tops. It ported the JDK to its platform more than two years ago to find out how it was coming along. By contrast, it wonders when Windows CE will work on cable boxes. Although Tele-Communications In has announced a two-pronged strategy for using Personal Java and Windows CE in its digital cable boxes PowerTV hasn’t ruled itself out of the contest, claiming Microsoft is still blowing smoke about Windows CE’s suitability for set-tops and that TCI’s strategy has still to play out.