Microsoft, Alcatel Join Forces on IPTV
By Ed Oswald | Published February 22, 2005, 12:16 PM
French company Alcatel and Microsoft have announced the details of a partnership for IPTV or Internet Protocol Television. Alcatel will use Microsoft TV IPTV Edition to deliver content over broadband networks and use Microsoft's technology in its hardware. Both companies hope that the agreement will help to accelerate growth in IPTV services.
"By aligning the efforts of both companies, we can provide a complete solution...and significantly raise the bar for consumer services in the home," said Moshe Lichtman, corporate vice president of the Microsoft TV Division. Microsoft has already signed agreements with other companies, including SBC Communications, BellSouth and Telecom Italia.
First there's the internet. Then news over the internet in the form of blogs and small news sites like /., Fark, later picked up by the big news companies. Then music over the internet (Napster, ITunes, etc.), then movies over the internet (Netflix, Blockbuster web, etc.), then phone over the internet (Vonage, Skype, etc.), now TV over the internet?
Wow, this is really becoming an interesting time to live in; all the forms of media converging onto the web. It will be interesting to see if MS can succeed in this market.
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