• by Wayne Friedman , June 20, 2012

Too many smart TV manufacturers going in different directions has at least two TV makers thinking of a more streamlined approach to development.

Big TV companies LG Electronics and TP Vision (which manufactures Philips-branded TV sets in many territories) have started the Smart TV Alliance, intent on creating a "non-proprietary ecosystem for application developers to create attractive, platform-independent services."

The two companies believe this will save on time and money in creating new systems/services.

"Before today, the Smart TV industry was a very difficult market for both application developers and TV manufacturers and as TVs, from different brands using different platforms and technologies," stated Bong-seok Kwon of LG Electronics, President of Smart TV Alliance.

Alain Perrot, a TP Vision senior executive, says: "Instead of spending valuable time on porting and testing on different platforms, developers can focus their creativity solely on realizing apps that consumers will enjoy." TP Vision is 70% owned by TPV and 30% by Royal Philips Electronics. It is headquartered in the Netherlands.

Smart TV Alliance is making the first version of its software development kit available on its Web site, where developers can download at no cost to develop applications. Web technologies, such as HTML5, will allow Web applications to run on Smart TV's from participating members, regardless of the underlying platform.

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