Arris makes $21M IPTV bet on Digeo, Moxi Makeover in 2011 or Later

During an investor relation conference call this morning Arris presented a very compelling view of media convergence, with the newly expanded product line right at the center. Moxi adds to the Arris line of customer premise equipment (CPE), spearheaded by IP telephones.   The real synergy between the companies however, is on the cable operator side.

While you may now Moxi best as a stand alone set top box (STB), the interface has been around longer, sold directly to cable operators for STB rented to subscribers.  Arris has an extensive catalog of DOCSIS based solutions for cable.  Another important element for what Arris consistently referred to as the broadcast side, was early September’s acquisition of EGT

Arris expressed being “closer than ever to the customer”, but admitted to needing “a better channel that needs to evolve” to properly service the Moxi retail business.  Some fun facts about what is in store for them

• 300,000 Moxi enabled STB install base through cable operator subscriptions, since 2004
• no numbers were disclosed from the direct to consumer business started in January 2009
• Moxi had seen updates release in Spring and Summer to its retail customers, but any new updates, especially a logical extension such as tru2way, probably won’t be seen until 2011.

To back track a little, around the time Moxi was bursting on the scene in 2004, Arris had converged IP voice and data.  With their two September acquisitions they are now adding video to that convergence picture.  And that is not all they are adding, as you may see below.

You think that’s a nice photo?  Arris firmly stated that they are still looking how to use their strong balance sheet to “propel towards next generation of products because of disruption of how video is being deliver over the networks in an IP format”  Check back in a few months to see what it looks like at that time.

In the meantime, they have end-to-end tools for broadcasters to deliver linear TV onto the web using IP and take on the likes of

• Motorola
• Cisco
• TiVo

Arris sees Moxi as a home gateway, not only for you, but for Arris.  This is a major undertaking for their CPE and will be more challenging than Telephony.  Digeo did most of the customer support for Moxi and that does not appear to be an Arris model today.  But for $21 million, they could have done a lot worse.