<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 10:58 AM, Steven Ellis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:steven@openmedia.co.nz">steven@openmedia.co.nz</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
On Mon, March 2, 2009 10:24 am, James Booth wrote:<br>
> Can anyone explain what Sky has to gain/protect by restricting<br>
> customers to using only Sky-supplied decoders? Would it really be a<br>
> problem for them to supply CAM's for use in HTPC's etc?<br>
<br>
</div>1. Control - Sky loves to control the market. Notice that unlike the UK<br>
you can't by a Sky STB here.<br>
<br>
2. Piracy - Cam's allow you to copy their material, plus potentially allow<br>
card sharing, plus make attempts to duplicate cards more popular.<br>
<br>
3. Adverts - Yes MySky can fast forward, but it doesn't do auto ad<br>
skipping etc.<br>
</blockquote></div><br>4. MySkyHD - any third-party decoder market can only eat into their sales of MySkyHD installs. I can't see the expanded market bring in enough new customers to offset this.<br><br>5. Sky would have to support these other decoders: they'd have to consider them when doing software updates, they'd have to provide tech support or risk annoying customers.<br>
<br>Turn the question around: what has Sky got to gain by allowing third party decoders? Not much as far as I can see.<br><br>Cheers,<br>Steve<br>