Digeo and Monster have announced a strategic partnership:
The collaboration will allow Digeo and Monster to combine the premium entertainment experience delivered by Digeo’s Moxi products with the superior quality and broad product line-up offered by Monster. It also brings Monster a step closer to their own expanded business strategy of creating an ecosystem of plug-and-play connected entertainment and home control devices. Together, the companies will also examine other compelling digital services and business development opportunities.
While at the Get Connected event in July some Monster folks I was chatting with indicated they’re planning to expand/enhance their Digital Home unit offerings. Though I would have never guessed a partnership with Digeo. I’ll be interested to see what this relationship produces with the upcoming Moxi retail push… beyond the obvious co-branding opportunities.
Update: Digeo has also announced at CEIDA a partnership to integrate home control into their set-top boxes:
Digeo, Inc., makers of the Emmy-award winning Moxi digital media recorder (DMR), today announced they are licensing software from, and collaborating with, 4HomeMedia to develop compelling new ways to control some of the most commonly installed home control systems, such as audio/visual (A/V), lighting, and IP-based surveillance cameras. Moxi products, which are popular among HDTV users and others looking for a premium entertainment experience, provide an engaging and easy-to-use interface that can be applied to a variety of home control scenarios.
This is much bigger news and much more interesting – and ~in theory~ will really allow them to distinguish their product line from TiVo and generic DVRs.
I just don’t cram so much into their DVRs that it costs significantly more than a TivoHD. I really want them to hurry up and launch their CableCard DVR…isn’t it Q4 yet?
-rDw-
The murmurs tell me the “higher end” non-CableCARD model will hit first with the CableCARD multi-room to follow. Last I heard, both were still on track for delivery this year. Not sure what the pricing will be for the CableCARD model, but I get the sense it’s going to be steep… the only way they could conceivably offset that is by bundling lifetime service.
Uh oh, they got within 150 yards of Monster, that’s an automatic 300% price increase. ;-)
The home control tech is more interesting from a geek standpoint – but I don’t see it driving sales measurably. How many people actually have home automation systems? Exactly. :-) So it is cool, but I don’t think it is worth much.