Brightcove Slags off iTV In Favor Of XBox 360

Following Apple’s announcement of iTV, Brightcove Chairman JeremyAllaire wrote a rather scathing review of the product. Brightcove is very much an advocate of open source competition in the internet video distribution market. In his blog he wrote:

It's great to see Apple starting to focus on the living room, emulating some of Microsoft's work over the past two years.  It will be interesting to see whether consumers are willing to spend $299 for a wireless media bridge, while they could also spend $299 and get a game/home entertainment platform, DVD player, and wireless media bridge all in one with the XBox 360.
This, of course, begs the much larger question of whether open platforms for digital media will win over the closed platform approach that Apple has taken.  Apple tightly controls their device, media formats / DRM, and retail distribution.  No one can create their own web-based services to target the device, the DRM format is closed, and to get monetized distribution through iTunes you need to directly negotiate a deal with Apple.
On the other hand, Microsoft has offered up a dramatically more open strategy -- anyone can make a device compatible with their formats and DRM (the DRM format can be licensed cheap and there are C and Linux implementations), anyone can build a media service that works with both.  And they offer up best of breed devices that have a shot at transforming the living room -- I like the XBox 360 as a living-room hub more than the 'iTV', which feels to me more like the various wireless media extenders that have languished in retail outlets.

I personally feel there is to date no product that really offers an effective internet to TV bridge. Similarly, video content is not of a standard suitable to send over to the TV. I don’t care what people say. It is just not good enough yet. There is still all to play for in this game. I hope Brightcove do well as they have a really decent business philosophy and a good service/product. But history shows that doesn’t always lead to product success. Brand proliferation is by and large the biggest factor.