NetChannel Inc, the Internet Service Provider with a service marketed exclusively at home use through a TV and set-top box, has signed with Japanese software developer Access Co Ltd to bundle its NetFront set-top software, with NetChannel’s service, in a move which the pair hope will leave the competition, Microsoft Corp’s WebTV Networks Inc, for dead. WebTV develops its own software, provides the Internet Service and has two hardware reference specifications, that are licensed as a whole to Philips Electronics NV, Sony Corp and Mitsubishi Corp. The NetChannel/Access alliance reckons that it will be more successful because it is offering a software and Internet Service bundle, but is leaving the choice of hardware up to the manufacturers, many of which have their own lines of embedded processors. Access also claims that it can help NetChannel break into the closed Japanese electronics cartels, because Access has existing business with a number of consumer electronics manufacturers, for both the NetFront software and its MORE Real Time Operating System based on the Japanese ITRON standard. Access also is part of the Japanese Easy Internet Association, a group of 60 companies promoting an open standards approach to the development of Internet-enabled appliances. NetChannel has also already got two manufacturers on board which have started selling the boxes, Thomson Consumer Electronics’ RCA brand in the US(CI No 3,247) and UK-based NetProducts Ltd (CI No 3,203). Both are arrangements associated with one of NetChannel’s backers, the Cambridge technology guru and venture capitalist, Dr Herman Hauser, founder of the Acorn Group Plc. Acorn supplied the specifications for the set-top box to Oracle Corp’s Network Computer Inc, and Hauser has also funded NetProducts. NetChannel and Access aim to market their product at manufacturers developing products for the European and US markets, where NetChannel has its Internet services.
