Acquisition targets for TV manufacturers

Several hardware manufacturers are currently in the fray to become the TV vendor of choice for the future. The list includes Samsung, LG, Vizio and Sony amongst others. All of these companies realize that the TV of the future is going to have to be smart - i.e. have a fairly powerful computer and sophisticated software and services embedded inside it. The critical question for these manufacturers then will become: "Do we have the wherewithal to develop and maintain the software that will do much of the heavy lifting on Smart TVs?"

Some of the TV manufacturers - Sony, Vizio - have concluded that they are better off partnering with another player - Google TV - on the software. On the other hand, Samsung only has a prototype integration with Google TV and no product. Samsung seems to be actively debating a "go it alone" strategy vs "partner with Google TV" strategy. Finally LG seems to have decided to do much of the work on its own while partnering with smaller players such as Brightcove to provide some of the "smartness".

And then there are other major TV manufacturers Panasonic, Sharp, Tcl, Viewsonic and Philips. All of these manufacturers (along with LG) will need a solid software platform to build their next generation TVs on. Some will no-doubt go it alone and invest in their own software platform. Others may align with Google TV - especially if their in-house efforts fail to gain traction. The remaining may find themselves bidding for Boxee, which already does much of the software integration that makes TVs smart. Or for one of Boxee's competitors such as Roku or Sezmi.

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