Technicolor ready to jump back into set-top fray

Having slashed jobs and costs during an 18-month restructuring that somehow avoided the complexities of bankruptcy, French set-top box maker Technicolor is ready to get back into the international market and compete against the likes of Motorola, Cisco and Pace with products aimed at simplifying the end user experience.

Technicolor CEO Frederic Rose, speaking at the Reuters Summit in Paris, said the company's goal is to make the expanded TV experience-including over-the-top content-less painful for an existing generation of TV watchers.

"My dream is that people will turn on their TV and in three or four clicks will find what they are looking for," he said. "Today it can often take a dozen clicks to find one news program there are too many boxes, too many remotes and too much hardware."

While Rose admitted there current and encroaching service providers are in a death struggle to own the end user, "no one really controls the consumer. The winners will be those who can simplify these offerings like connected TV and video-on-demand to make them appealing to the masses."

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