As many of you will know I’m a big fan of slingbox – I love technology that just works and from the day I plugged in my first slingbox I’ve never looked back. Where ever I am in the world I can access my Sky+ box to either watch live or recorded programs on my laptop or even my WinMo device (damn, I’ve even been known to simply change the channels whilst abroad to upset the kids – but that’s another story).

Now it seems that Sky are possibly targeting this market by “untethering” the sky player from the sky dish – or so says on-demand director Griff Parry in an interview with Paid Content…

• The strategy is twofold: First, Sky Player is now untethered from the satellite proposition – meaning new, online-only customers can join despite not having a dish on their home. Second, nevermind Slingbox; for those who are Sky satellite subscribers, Sky Player is all about place-shifting – free to those who also take broadband or multiroom, the service’s 18 live channels are available not just in rooms beyond the lounge, but anywhere there is an internet connection; there’s also VOD content from across 23 TV channels, too.

“Long-term, by nature Sky is a platform operator, an aggregator and a retailer – what we’re trying to do with Sky Player is broadly replicate the proposition you would get on a set-top box. We’re reaffirming ourselves as the natural aggregator of TV, online.”

I’m not ditching my slingbox just yet