Samsung acquired Boxee in 2013 and the team has reportedly been working on a secret “project PX” (Perfect Experience) ever since. It was a plan to rethink the TV remote and replace it with a tablet. However, it will never see the light of the day as Samsung has decided to kill the project, according to a report by Variety.
Boxee is officially dead
You probably remember Boxee best for its strange-looking black media box for TVs. The company struggled to stay afloat in its last year and Samsung decided to acquire it for $30 million. Since then, the team has been working on a so-called "project PX".
According to Variety, Samsung had big plans after the acquisition. Boxee’s 40 employees moved to Samsung and the Korean company later added 60 more from other departments and smaller acquisitions. The plan was to rethink the classic TV remote and replace it with a touch-enabled tablet.
The tablet would control the entire TV experience, including channels and streaming. It was a not a tablet with apps in the traditional sense, but rather a dedicated tablet for the living room table that only served one purpose; a companion for the TV. The plan was to bundle the tablet with Samsung’s 2015 high-end TVs.
- “It was a very bold initiative,” said one source to Variety. Another source told them that the project was considered ”highly controversial” amongst some Samsung’s executives. The executives were skeptical about the project partly because it was being run from a New York based office and because it was being kept secret from Samsung’s TV division in Korea.
However, the tablet was not ready for release in 2015 and Samsung has now decided to kill the project entirely and dismantle the team. The former CEO of Boxee reportedly no longer works for Samsung. One of reasons was that content partners did not want to participate and cease control of the user interface to Samsung.
We now know why Samsung acquired Boxee. Sadly, it never led to anything substantial. Boxee is history.
- Source: Variety
