Right round the world big brands like Microsoft are rolling out music and IPTV content sites but not in Australia. 18 months ago Microsoft said they would role out a "massive" music content site in partnership with Sanity but that fizzled into total silence and no site.
Apple is currently cutting content deals with content distributors and Hollywood movie houses for their Apple TV offering and it is expected that they will announce new services when they role out the first of their own shops in Sydney later this year
For many IT Companies the threat online could well come from a corner store favourite Blockbuster who have been renting tape and DVD's for decades in Australia. According to Reuters the home video giant is currently developing a set-top device for streaming films directly to TV sets and is expected to announce the offering sometime this month in the USA.
The big advantage that Blockbuster have over most other contenders is that they own databases of consumers who currently rent movie content. Their brand is also linked with content distribution. One option for Blockbuster is that they adopt a similar policy to the telecommunication carriers in that they either charge a low fee for the set top box or give it away based on X amount of movie pull downs in the same way that the carriers sell phones based on monthly service fees.
