Soft At Home to give Microsoft Mediaroom a hard time

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by Stuart Corner

Thursday, 21 February 2008

Page 1 of 2 ! Orange (France Telecom), Thomson and Sagem Communications have formed a joint venture to develop standards for the interconnection of equipment in the digital home of the future, in what is being seen as a direct challenge to Microsoft's Mediaroom initiative. Related stories Review: Too Human Microsoft investment shows all is not well at Novell Microsoft IE8 Beta 2 released: the web browser for jerk-offs? It’s the end for the “Frickin’ Laser” THQ pony up some sweet Saints Row 2 packs Mediaroom is the latest update and a renaming of the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition platform software, intended for use in a set-top box to access on-demand as well as live television programming on an Microsoft IPTV network. It was announced in June 2007 and Microsoft already has 20 Mediaroom customers, including some of the world's largest telcos. Reuters quoted France Telecom senior executive president Georges Penalver, responsible for Orange Labs and strategic marketing, saying: "We are aiming to develop a standard for the industry. And our standards will respond better to the needs of telecoms operators than others," which Reuters suggested was a comment aimed at Microsoft. Penalver added: "If we do nothing, we will face a segmented market with different standards in different countries and that would be an industrial waste." At present, Orange owns 60 percent of Soft at Home and the other two 20 percent each. It will employ between 70 and 80 staff by the end of 2008. The JV says it has "a global development ambition, and is looking to rapidly welcome new partners into its capital." No financial details have been released. The three companies bring considerable and complementary strengths to the alliance. Thomson is one of the world's leading players on the market for decoders (cable, satellite, IP) and residential gateways (DSL and cable). It claims that its SmartVision video-over-IP platform is having great success, with more than 40 client operators using it to offer IP and mobile telephone-based television worldwide. According to Thomson, "this solution has the largest installed TV-over-IP base, with over 1.2 million users." << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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