The Akimbo story isn’t over yet… As Om Malik reported yesterday, Akimbo has picked up $15 million dollars from a variety of investors including Cisco and AT&T. Not so coincidentally, Akimbo will be providing content downloads for AT&T’s upcoming Homezone service. While Akimbo’s hardware revision has been pushed to the fall, PC Magazine just published details on the updated hardware and service. Given Akimbo’s intended partnership with Movielink, it’s no surprise they’re moving to a Microsoft platform that supports Windows Media Video (and DRM). As announced at CES, RCA will manufacture the box. They estimate it’ll cost $200 – $300 and include basic content downloads at the current $10/mo price point, while prime content and movies will incur additional fees. Movielink’s fairly large library (much larger than MovieBeam’s 100 flicks) is compelling, but paying monthly service fees plus rental fees on top of a hardware expense doesn’t sit well with me and I don’t think the market will support this model… We’ll see how things play out in the fall and learn if this is indeed their final pricing scheme.
Another STB with “Failure” written all over it.