Boxee and Walmart Put Disappointment Under the Tree
“很多人都把它们带回来了," a helpful Walmart employee told me the day before Thanksgiving, 指着 Boxee电视 我握在手里. "Don't know why they're selling it here, since it only works in a few cities."
Boxee电视于10月下旬推出, 沃尔玛是其独家零售合作伙伴, 零售价是99美元. It is capable of tuning over-the-air (OTA) content as well as basic, unencrypted or unscrambled cable television programming, via an RF interface on the back of the diminutive Boxee电视.
该公司再次与D-Link合作, 提供Boxee Box的公司, a product that has now been deprecated -- the company mentioned it would cease developing for Boxee Box a few months ago, much to the chagrin of vocal customers who feel some advertised features of Boxee Box never made it out of beta -- and now all development is focused squarely on Boxee电视.
For the company to avoid disappointing customers again, it would make sense to have the most important features -- the USP, or unique selling proposition -- ready to go at product launch. 然而,, 这两项主要功能仍未推出, almost a month after launch: live television pause and cloud- or network-based DVR (nDVR).
这两个特征, which the company touts as part and parcel of the "Boxee Rebellion" on its packaging, 还没有准备好广泛使用吗. 事实上, the nDVR functionality that Boxee calls unlimited DVR is only available in beta in eight cities in the United States: Atlanta, 芝加哥, 达拉斯/沃斯堡, 休斯顿, 洛杉矶, 纽约市, 费城, 和华盛顿特区.C.
This makes the Boxee Rebellion only a scattered rebellion at best, fought house to house in major urban areas during the critical holiday season.
To make matters worse, there's a mismatch in the Boxee-Walmart retail strategy. Walmart has a limited presence in many of those urban markets, 因此，该公司面临着一个重大障碍, selling the product in mostly rural areas that form the basis of Walmart's market penetration strategy, but not offering the nDVR service in those areas.
When I asked the Walmart employee to explain her comment that the product "only works in a few cities" she pointed out that customers in my local market see the packaging offering Boxee's nDVR, 它称之为无限DVR, and assume the product works in the city in which they purchase the Boxee电视.
Boxee initially priced the service $15 per month, then announced in early November that it was dropping the price of unlimited DVR to $10 per month and making it free for three months of beta in the eight markets noted above.
“随着我们开始在这些市场提供服务，” Boxee在其博客上说, "we assume there's going to a few growing pains so we're marking the service as beta, but most users should have full functionality (and it will be free during this period)."
The Boxee电视 packaging says nothing about unlimited DVR being in beta, 但我还是买了下来测试一下. 设置相当简单, and the unit auto-updates and links to a Boxee电视 account that the consumer sets up. Attempts to pause live television result in a warning message on the screen stating that live television pause isn't possible yet.
这个“尚未”将推动大量产品退货. 当我购买设备进行测试时, I was looking forward to at least one of the two major features being available. +, the Boxee电视 unit I had in my hands was the only one left in the store, so I reasoned Boxee must have fixed all the issues I'd heard about over the month since launch. Or at least that's what I told myself as I walked out of the store.
While Walmart may be happy that its Vudu on-demand movie streaming service is included as an app on Boxee电视, one suspect the world's largest retailer will be less impressed if the number of returns begin to mount across Walmart's core demographic of small cities and rural areas.
Boxee可能感觉到了这一点, as a line on its blog post announcing Boxee电视 hints at not buying the unit for the holiday season.
“因为这个DVR是基于云的, 只要在你所在的城市有售, 你马上就可以开始使用它了, whether you buy your Boxee电视 [now] or nine months from now,这篇博文写道.
Boxee一直以雄心勃勃而闻名, a thought that crossed my mind as I returned the Boxee电视 unit two days later. 然而, ambition needs to be tempered when a product isn't truly ready.
Somehow, though, I don't think Boxee sees it this way. I went back to the blog post while writing this article, and found the closing line ironic:
"Boxee电视 is easily the most ambitious set top box on the market,这篇博文写道. "Pick one up and see for yourself just how powerful No Limits can be."
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