• Netflix, for example, offers a huge library of movies, streamed on demand from their central servers. It has a way to go to provide comprehensive offerings and a better interface, but it's working and it's a start.
• Individuals and Internet-based television networks like Revision3 are producing video podcasts that are often more interesting than anything coming from the major networks.
• Verizon is now offering it's FiOS service, with fiber-optic cabling and mind-bogglingly fast Internet and video services delivered into the home. This is a case of a traditional phone company competing on cable's turf.

Cable companies have also long faced competition from the satellite providers. Dish and DirecTV have excellent offerings, and although both companies have long had a love-hate relationship with TiVo (OK, Dish has mostly a hate-hate relationship), the satellite companies are pulling business away from cable operators.

But it's not just up to the cable operators. Providers of third party hardware need to step up to the plate and do a better job. TiVo, for example, has dropped the ball here.

When I got my pretty new TiVo HD, it came with a one page slip with instructions for installing the CableCARDs. The key message was to remind the installer to check the encrypted channels. That's it. That's all the guidelines we got.

But if TiVo (or HP, or Dell, or Microsoft with Media Center PCs) want to get real penetration, they need to overcome the push-back consumers are getting from installers and cable operators. Fundamentally, they need to provide better resources to make the install successful.

My installer spent hours working with his field office to get some settings changed to support my new CableCARD-equipped TiVo. They had to rely on complete guesswork, calling old buddies who once worked the job, and complete random chance. It would have been so much better if TiVo had provided, in the box, a detailed guide for installers. If the folks at TiVo had really done their homework, they could have provided prompts, telling the installer how to advise the back-office to set up the configuration properly.

But what else could a Flexible Enterprise have done?

How about pre-determining all of the back-office settings for all of the various cable providers? Then, when a TiVo owner running on, say, the Cox network was doing an install, TiVo would have very specific instructions for making the TiVo and the CableCARDs work on that specific network.

Or how about a CableCARD hotline? Here, the installer calls in and the TiVo hotline technician connects a three-way call to the cable provider back-office, guiding them through the setup.

Or how about localized training? TiVo and the other third-party suppliers could present free training seminars for each cable office around the country. It might be a little costly, but it could go a long way to prevent the push-back consumers are getting from the cable providers.