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The Web Really Is Coming To Television

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Logitech is best known as a computer peripherals company, making keyboards and camcorders. Recently, though, it entered the living room, selling a set-top box that will run a new video product from Google . Forbes Senior Editor Lee Gomes talked with Logitech Chief Executive Officer Gerald Quindlen about this busy part of the home electronics market.

To see the video interview, click here.

Forbes: How is TV in the living room changing?

Gerald Quindlen: For some time you've seen different companies come out with solutions that allow consumers to access what I call "Part of the Internet." You could visit certain sites. The problem with that is people don't want just part of the Internet. They want to be able to go anywhere. No one's been able to come up with a solution that allows people to seamlessly move between TV and the full, unlimited Internet. That is, until the recent announcement that we were part of, as part of Google TV.

Google TV and Logitech's contribution to that will allow consumers to watch their entertainment content, if they want. Search the Web, surf any site on the Web, and toggle between the two things simply and easily. I think of it as pretty revolutionary.

Forbes: I've seen some of these devices. It's never been clear to me why people would want to watch the Internet or watch YouTube on their big-screen TV. Most people seem happy watching that on their laptop. Why do they need that in the living room?

I turn it around. They're looking at it on their laptop, in my opinion, because it's really the only option they have today. Some people will take their laptop and even connect it to a large-screen TV.

We look at it from the standpoint of people wanting to watch shows. They almost don't care whether it's via Hulu and on the Web or its broadcast content. They want to watch entertainment. They want to watch TV shows.

What we're trying to do is say, regardless of where it is, we want to help you watch whatever it is you want to watch. I think people watch things on their laptop now only because it's a hassle to do it any other way.

But the hassle still really hasn't been taken out of the experience completely. If you're a cable customer, you still need a separate cable box. You also need to sort of jerry-rig the two together.

Forbes: When do you think those might be integrated and people might just need one box to do all of this?

It's hard to say. This is the first step. One of the keys to this platform is it's an open platform. So you'll see constant innovation. A lot of the innovation will come from all of those developers out there that are developing applications.

We are making it a lot simpler for people to watch whatever kinds of content they want to watch, regardless of where it is. And yeah, they have to buy an extra box. But I don't think we've made it particularly tough. If you have an HDTV all you need is an HDMI input. It's a pretty simple connection. And then you're off going anywhere you want on the Internet, watching any content that you want to watch. I think it's pretty compelling.

Forbes: There are an awful lot of these boxes now, these extra boxes. How would you suggest consumers choose among them?

If I had to pick three words that really get at the heart of our platform versus the other solutions that have been out there, they would be that ours is open, seamless and simple. The problem with the other solutions that have been brought to the market to date is that they are none of those things.

Forbes: A lot of Internet-based TV now might be described as "When bad video happens to good displays." The quality of video on the Web is pretty low. It's often really compressed, with lots of artifacts, especially on a very big screen. Does this generation of products do anything to address that? And how do you think that might change in the future?

I think that's a good point. Looking at a bad quality video on a large screen isn't going to turn anybody on. But look at how many people are accessing YouTube videos. It's just staggering the number of videos that get uploaded every day.

I think what's exciting is even though the quality might not be perfect, there are so many unique user-generated videos out there. People don't seem to mind the quality. Sometimes they want to watch their favorite show. Other times they want to go on YouTube and just look at what people have been posting. They can do either one very seamlessly.

Forbes: Somebody described this living room TV market as being in a "pre-Apple state," meaning there are currently a lot very diverse devices with no one to consolidate them the way Apple did with the iPod and music players. What role might Apple play in this market?

We just have to wait and see. We obviously embraced the Google TV platform, because we believe deeply in open platforms. Consumers benefit the most from open platforms; it's the best way for companies to be able to innovate. The PC has been the best example of that. It's the biggest open platform. And we've benefited obviously from participating in that.

Forbes: One of the issues in this area is that cable providers have not been willing to relinquish hardware control and allow other people to do more things in their boxes. To what extent does that dampen innovation in the living room?

We're not trying to go around the cable providers or anything like that. We're just trying to make it a whole lot easier for people to do what they want.

Forbes: How important do you think this category is going to be for Logitech?

We obviously bet big on it. We think it can be huge. Our company was founded almost 30 years ago in 1981 at the dawn of the PC revolution. And we built the company around the PC. People still call us a PC peripherals company, although we don't necessarily think of ourselves that way.

But the PC was already defined. The standards, the technology standards were already defined when we entered the space, by Microsoft and by Intel .

What's exciting for us here is we're one of the people at the table defining standards. It's us, it's Intel, it's Google, and it's Sony . And we obviously look to be able to replicate the PC's success of innovating on an open platform and building an ecosystem of peripherals. That's what we're excited about.

Forbes: To what extent will the kind of functionality you're describing just disappear and become part of the television? Part of the $1,000 TV you bring home from Costco or whatever. Or will you always need a special box?

I think over time if consumers respond to the platform the way we think they will, you will see it migrate into the television. But our value added will still be what it's always been, which is adding new features to peripheral products that let people get new experiences.

Forbes: There's been a lot of controversy in the tech industry about things that civilians tend to usually not know about, like Flash versus non-Flash video. How do you look at these sorts of issues?

Most people don't know about a lot of those kinds of nuances. And frankly, if they become barriers in any way to the experience, that's a bad thing. The key to a product like this, in my opinion, is it's got to be simple. I keep using the word seamless. It's got to be seamless, simple, easy to use, easy to install, easy to set up.

To me, if it fails on any one of those dimensions, it's going to have a hard time being successful. People are too busy; they want to watch TV. They don't want to spend time dealing with an issue with Flash. If we don't make it incredibly easy and seamless for them to do what they really want, which is access content, watch TV, then I think we have problems.

-As told to, and edited by, Lee Gomes

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