Orb Media to abandon subscription model offer software free

March 31, 2005

Orb media
has decided to offer it's subscription streaming service for free. They already
gave 2 months away prior to $79 dollars a year or $9.95 a month, but by
forming the proper strategic alliances with consumer electronics companies and
or content providers, they think they can drop all charges. Not only that, they
also said that this is a "good will" gesture and they even intend to start
reimbursing those that have paid in the past.

The Orb service runs on cell phones, PDAs, laptops and
televisions using Windows Media, Real Media, QuickTime, or 3GP. The
Orb-enabled service recognizes analog TV, cable, Windows Media, JPEG, MP3,
and MPEG versions 1 through 4. The player also acknowledges universal plug
and play, Java based connection technology Jini, Apple's Rendezvous, and
X-10.

In addition to switching to a free service, Orb launched a new Photo
Sharing service so customers can swap with friends and family.

Orb also offers the ability to remotely record TV programs using Orb's
Digital Video Recorder (DVR) function and then view those recorded
programs at any time on any of their mobile devices. For watching
television, customers can buy tuner cards about a handful of third party
vendors like ADS Tech, Hauppauge, or AVerMedia.

In the article, Jim Behrens, Orb Networks CEO, said: "By eliminating
subscription fees, Orb eliminates the final barrier between consumers and their
digital media," "In our view, a free Orb service will exponentially
increase our value proposition for those customers -- and millions of new
customers as well."

If you go to the Orb website,
they seem to already be offering this product for free. But you will need a
broadband connection in order to view the streaming content. Not to mention, a
pretty powerful PC, a 2.4Ghz Intel processor is suggested. But, this might be
interesting to try out as the software does have quite a few nice capabilities
according to the website.

Source: Internet News.com