Intel creates USD 200 million fund to accelerate digital home television

The Intel Digital Home Fund represents a significant step in the company's strategy to enable people to enjoy digital content - including music, photos and video - on multiple home devices.

The new fund, which will be managed by Intel Capital, will invest in companies developing hardware and software, as well as connectivity and supporting technologies. Through this and other work, Intel is leading efforts to drive the convergence of personal computer and consumer electronics devices on a seamless, wireless home network.

"As more entertainment and educational content becomes digital, people across the world including the Middle East want to edit, manage and access that content and share it among multiple devices including TVs, stereos, PCs and handhelds," said Tanguy de la Horie, Intel's marketing manager for the Middle East Turkey and Africa region. "The Digital Home Fund is designed to complement Intel products and accelerate development of key technologies and content which enhance and simplify the digital home experience."

Prior to the fund's formation, Intel Capital has invested in companies pursuing the digital home vision. Examples include:
•Bridgco which designs low-cost chips for digital media adapters that link home devices.
•Entropic which designs chips for home networking over coaxial cabling.
•Musicmatch which sells software for recording, organizing and playing music.

Today's announcement builds upon Intel's existing digital home programs to help drive the convergence of devices, content and services through industry specifications. It is delivering core technologies for new computing devices, networking products and consumer electronics. The company provides a broad range of building blocks for digital home solutions, including silicon, reference designs and software solutions for media center PCs, advanced set-top boxes, digital media adapters, portable media players and handheld devices. Intel also provides a comprehensive set of development and test tools for universal plug and play (UPnP) technologies.

"More people want the ability to have their content available anytime, anywhere and on any device," said Louis Burns, Vice President General Manager Desktop Platforms Group Intel. "They want to wirelessly transfer MP3 files from a PC in the den so they can listen to them on their stereo in the family room, they want to view digital photos on their big screen TV, or to watch video content on handheld wireless devices. Intel will continue pursuing its vision of unifying computing and consumer electronics functions for the benefit of consumers."