Unfortunately, none of these bold predictions came true and Intel was rumored to selling this project to Verizon.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich talked with Recode's Ina Friend explaining the situation. Essentially, he grew very skeptical of the project's chances for success.
While the exec wouldn't discuss any negotiations with Verizon, Fried's article mentions that her explained this deal could be announced very soon.
Krzanich's reasoning for getting out of the media business was that Intel had the technology to support these endeavors, it was lacking in the quality content arena.
He elaborates that "When you go and play with the content guys, it's all about volume. And we come at it with no background, no experience, no volume."
His full comments on the project are below:
It's actually a very good product, if you take a look at the hardware and the technology. We've said pretty repeatedly that the technology is quite good. I could get into the "hows" but it really does have a great user interface. This concept of having three days of everything that is on TV at your instantaneous access is really unique.
But at the end of the day, just like when you go home and watch TV, it's all about content.
You could have the biggest screen, you could have the clearest screen. But if there is not great content on this thing, that big-screen TV is not a huge value to you, even though it has the best picture on the planet.
This device has the same set of issues. It is a great device and has great technology, but at the end of the day it's about the content you get on there.
When you go and play with the content guys, it's all about volume. And we come at it with no background, no experience, no volume. We were ramping from virtually zero and so what we've said is we are out looking for a partner that can help us scale that volume at a much quicker rate.
To read the rest of the interview, click here.