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The HTML5 Video wars have settled into two camps. Microsoft and Apple support H.264. This video codec was recently freed by the MPEG LA but only for video free to view by end users ("Internet Broadcast AVC Video"). Google open sourced its VP8 video in May under the WebM open Web media project with a BSD-style, royalty-free license­. Mozilla and Opera support WebM. I think H.264 is a short-term solution for Apple given the fact that the MPEG LA can change the fee structure in 2016. There is a possibility in the mean time that a pass-through fee could be imposed for protected video content running over iTV. Apple needs to get moving quickly on the follow-on to H.264 - HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, aka H.265). HEVC aims to reduce bitrate requirements by half through increased computational complexity. Targeted at next generation HDTV systems with progressive scanned frame rates and scalable from QVGA to 1080p, it will fully replace the H.264. Apple also needs to make sure that its processors will be able to handle the future compression (3x or more) while preserving battery life and reducing device heat dissipation. Video standards can't be "free to roam or make a home out of everywhere they've been." It's too costly for content creators to publish to conflicting standards.

A rubric is a scoring tool for subjective assessments. Tech-savy consumers have a natural ability for assigning rubrics when purchasing entertainment or media. The trade-offs in accessibility, content quality and cost have become problematic in $69.8 billion U.S. TV subscription market. Apple is expected to introduce the new iTV service platform during their event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco this week. Internet online video did to cable TV what cable did to network TV. The industry has accelerated the unbundling of content from its transport. It's happened in music, newspaper publishing and book publishing.  While the Comcast/NBC merger continues to come under FCC scrutiny, Apple is negotiating with ABC, CBS and Fox for 99-cent streaming TV show rentals. Google is also negotiating with Hollywood for Pay-per-View service on YouTube. On the fringe, you have Xbox and Hulu. Microsoft recently increased its Xbox subscription rate, and why not? Hulu is trying to sell a $9.99 monthly subscription (with advertising) to its users. The consumer can assess their needs layer by layer, just like solving the Rubix cube. Once you decide on the content, you can decide how best to consume it. Leveraging existing in-home appliances like a Blue-Ray player or Xbox, provides the Codec, streaming processor & local cache needed for HD 1080p. People will not want throw away their existing investment, despite what Apple or Google may do. 

Where Apple had a proprietary approach to TV, Google looks to introduce a set-top box based on Android, dubbed "Smart TV," at the I/O conference this week. Smart TV is in collaboration with Sony, Intel and Logitech and allows users to switch easily between TV shows, YouTube or home videos on your own set. The Apple TV, introduced in 2007, requires iTunes so users can buy or rent movies, TV shows, songs or podcasts. The Apple TV was a living room extension of the iTunes Store, that's about it. No major networks got on board with Apple.  Although earlier this year, we thought Disney and CBS were interested in Apple's offer of $2-$4/month per subscriber. That is much higher than networks get today. The only catch was Apple would sell a subscription without ads as a $30/month bundle. I doubted the networks would get on board because their source of reach is cable networks. Those cable MSOs do not want to compete with Internet TV served up by Apple. Google on the other hand, with Smart TV, would enable Google to control navigation of content through the TV set. They've been testing a search service to help consumers find shows on the Dish Network already. Intel provides the Atom chips, Sony provides the consumer brand and Logitech would provide a specialized remote with a built-in keyboard. On the video front, I think Google is about to open up the VP8 video codec acquired with their purchase of On2. The lack of an appropriate universal codec for the HTML5 video element has made it difficult for standards-based video to reach critical mass. H.264 compression still rules and so do its patents and license fees. VP8 is said to be highly sophisticated and competitive with H.264. If Google makes VP8's underlying intellectual property available under royalty-free terms, it could propel HTML5 video as the de-facto standard. Think HD Internet video in a browser from your 62" set! The wildcard is if they can keep the Android kernel for TV from fragmenting. Open Source is a two-edged sword as I've pointed out many times.

Many people are drawing similarities between Intel's recent announcement of its' AppUp Store and the venerable Apple App Store. Companies including netbook manufacturers, automobile makers, RIM, Palm and Microsoft have followed along Apple's concept. One difference will be the Google Chrome OS application store as they will be web apps, not local apps (well maybe some Google Gears apps). Intel's AppUp is a favor to netbook manufacturers because it provides a nifty application OEMs can customize as their own private label app store. Lest we forget, iTunes was a wildly successful client application before the App Store ever existed. That's why I don't think these second derivative app stores will be that useful. Users don't want to search every app store for what they need. It would make sense to go somewhere on the web where applications are rated by other users across platforms and useful feedback is provided. For open systems like Android, it is even more important that the community act as the support mechanism. The trend is moving toward TVs and other consumer devices and the manufacturers will not be able to keep up. 

With Cisco's acquisition of Tidal Software last week, the company continues to beef up its software portfolio beyond its core networking business. Tidal makes performance monitoring software for enterprise applications like Oracle and SAP that run in large data centers. While $105 million is not a big bet for Cisco, I see this as further convergence of computing and communications in both the enterprise data center and ultimately in the cloud. There is innovation at the core OS level to optimize performance for Intel's new Xeon 5500 processors. Microsoft Hyper-V, Sun Solaris and Red Hat Linux have been extended to enable performance and energy efficiency improvements available using Intel's extended page table memory access. This allows the hypervisor to bypasses kernel software codepaths altogether and map directly to virtual guest instances. Advanced memory management using Intel's QuickPath enables the ability to virtualize previously uncommon I/O workloads such as database & file serving. This is how we will see network layer virtualization evolve, reducing power consumption while creating efficient memory use along the way. All these features, combined with Cisco's California architecture, are coming together to disrupt the computing core. Moving up the data center management stack with tools such as Tidal makes a lot of sense for Cisco, because at the end of the day, the key will be application performance.

Dell introduced the new Dell Precision workstations based on the Xeon product line from Intel today. As the master of PC industry road-map, Intel tells IBM, Dell, HP and other PC manufacturers what they are building next and when. These processors also power the new Mac Pro and Apple has a nice summary of the architecture on their site. Nehalem (Xeon 3500/5500) utilizes the 45nm process and features the latest micro-architecture. The next stop will be the shrink of the die called "Westmere" in a 32nm process. Intel has a well thought out roadmap - shrink, then innovate, then shrink again (Tick/Tock). This gives OEMs a good runway for product planning and price/performance curve forecasting. Now with Cisco's entry into the datacenter space, they will also be a key stakeholder in the future generations. Much has been said about virtualization enhancements with this architecture but the real key is on-chip memory control. Improved memory management is the key to supporting more VM instances on the bare metal. We'll see the rest of the industry show their hands on Monday.