All Netflix Clients Are Not Created Equal
Colin Dixon, Senior Partner, Advisory
May 11, 2010
It is getting hard to find a connected TV platform that does not feature a Netflix streaming client. The Company is clearly intent on ensuring that Netflix customers are able to access the service from whichever TV-connected device they may purchase. As of May 2010, the Netflix client is available on 12 different TV platforms, including the top three game consoles, TVs and Blu-ray players from Vizio, Insignia, LG, Panasonic, and Sony, as well as TiVo DVRs.
As if this is not enough, Netflix is going mobile. The iPad app is winning praises from users (and in some cases being touted as reason enough to purchase the device) and will soon hit the iPhone. As well, it appears that Android users will soon be able to enjoy the service, as Netflix is currently hiring Android developers.
Is it just a matter of time before the Netflix client is available on every connected video device? The answer to that question is a resounding “NO.”
Multiple Devices = Multiple Client Applications
Developing and maintaining this growing variety of clients places a huge burden on the engineers tasked with building them. For example, the Xbox 360 client has its own unique development environment, one very different from any of the other platforms on which the Netflix client runs. From the interface to the encryption technology, everything about this Netflix client is specific to the Xbox. Sony’s PS3, however, is based on technology from RCDb and delivered on a Blu-ray disk. The PS3’s encryption and streaming platform are also different from Xbox. In fact, I suspect that little if any PS3 code is shared with the Xbox client.
Different consumer electronic devices may share software components such as a Linux operating system, Widevine encryption, or even the Netflix streaming technology. However, this does not mean that one version of the Netflix client will run on all of them. Far from it. The client has to be custom-made for each of the devices on which it runs so that the client can accommodate different screen interfaces and hardware capabilities. This means that each client must be individually coded, tested, improved, and maintained.
All of this adds up to an enormous engineering effort and, consequently, Netflix must be amassing an army of application developers.
For Netflix — and any company seeking to deliver multi-screen video services using the Internet — the situation is becoming untenable. Aside from the fact that all of these different clients are confusing to customers, there is simply no way in the long term that any single company can support all these different versions of the software.
Multiple Client Applications = Slow Innovation
In an ideal world, the entire CE industry would agree on a set of standards that each device would support, thus making life much easier for content providers such as Netflix. These standards would cover two general areas:
- An application standard for content providers to create an interface that lets a user browse and play media, and
- A video standard for delivering streamed movies and shows.
With wide-scale support for these standards in place, a content provider would have to build only one application that would run on all the relevant CE devices. As well, the provider would only to have stream video in a single format and have it play on all devices.
Given the clear and convincing appeal of this concept, one would expect to see CE manufacturers moving in this direction, right? Not a chance. In fact, they are moving in precisely the opposite direction. CE manufacturers are working to differentiate themselves with their own proprietary portals and app stores.
For content companies like Netflix, this is bad news. Given the lack of standards in this space, they must continue to invest in building and supporting many different versions of their client software. Worse still, new features can only be added one client at a time. For example, the Xbox client has been able to browse the entire Netflix streaming library for nearly a year. Roku is only just introducing this feature. This is a huge problem for a company like Netflix, which prides itself on service innovation. As well, new client support will be very slow in coming, with many minority platforms never supported at all.
Perhaps Netflix, with its nearly 14 million subscribers, has the muscle to force manufacturers to reconsider the value of standards. Until then, if you want to enjoy the latest Netflix streaming innovations, pick your CE platform very carefully.
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