The Battle for TV’s Operating System

You may ask what does an operating system have to do with TV? With the convergence of TV and the Web is has lot to do with it. One of the latest Retrevo stories by Andrew Eisner covers this contest with Apple, Google, and Microsoft doing the battle here. Andrew writes that Microsoft does not have much of a chance of winning this battle for the TV OS. Google TV going for control of the living room like it controls Web search. Apple is countering with an updated version of their Apple TV that will put Apple iPhone/iPad apps firmly in the living room TV.

 Andrew writes that at the moment a TV OS vacuum exists and unfortunately for consumers, TV manufacturers appear to be filling it with their own proprietary offerings. He argues for standards and we agree. He concludes that the TV industry needs to move away from closed environments and let their connected TVs work with all the apps and streaming content that consumers are finding so appealing. True Web TV convergence needs to occur.