Dedicated Boxee hardware sounds awesome, but will the home entertainment heavyweights blow Boxee Box out of the water?

Don't get me wrong, the Boxee Box looks like a great device and I'm thrilled to see D-Link working hard to bring it to Australia with some local content deals. I'm just wondering if there'll be much of a market for it.

If you're an multimedia buff you've probably already got an IPTV solution. It might well be Boxee running on a computer or a hacked Apple TV. Perhaps it's something else running on a media centre, Apple TV or even PlayStation 3. You're probably using a VPN to tap into foreign services such as Hulu and Netflix. If this sounds like you, an Australian-centric Boxee Box probably doesn't hold much appeal (except for the cool remote control with a QWERTY keyboard on the back).

If you're a mainstream consumer just stumbling into the world of IPTV, I think Sony's Bravia Internet Television service is more likely to catch your eye - although probably running on a Sony Blu-ray player rather than a brand new television. When Sony ramps up its IPTV offering for the PlayStation 3, it might be enough to drive you into the PS3 camp. Even the Apple TV might look attractive - its iTunes store integration is a thing of beauty, but the lack of access to free Catch Up TV services such as Network Seven's brilliant Plus7 is obviously a drawback.

I like the idea of the Boxee Box, but I think if Boxee really wants to hit the big time it should focus on getting the Boxee interface onto existing devices. Apparently that's exactly what it's doing, with plans afoot for a Boxee Blu-ray player, according to NewTeeVee. "Step two for us is Blu-ray, step three would be TVs and game consoles," says Boxee's vice president of marketing Andrew Kippen.

It sounds like Boxee is putting the pieces in place for a major lounge room push, but it faces some stiff competition.