Microsoft Expands IPTV Technology Ecosystem as Worldwide Deployments Accelerate

Today at the 2007 National Association of
Broadcasters conference (NAB2007), the world’s largest electronic media
show, Microsoft Corp. announced additional top technology suppliers
providing technologies that support the Microsoft® TV Internet Protocol
Television (IPTV) Edition software platform, which is being deployed by
several leading service providers worldwide. The announcement
illustrates the accelerating growth of the IPTV industry and
Microsoft’s commitment to work with a broad range of solutions
providers to ensure ongoing industry innovation while allowing service
providers the flexibility to choose from a variety of technologies to
deploy IPTV services.

The announcement features new Microsoft IPTV partners or solutions in the following categories:

  • Server processors.
    AMD and Intel Corporation provide leading chipset solutions for server
    and storage infrastructures for the IPTV Edition ecosystem. Their
    processors are key to the scalable deployment of live and on-demand TV
    applications.
  • Encoding solutions. Thomson Grass Valley’s standard definition encoders support the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 standard used in IPTV Edition.
  • Set-top boxes.
    Pirelli Broadband Solutions will provide set-top boxes supporting
    Microsoft TV IPTV Edition. Pirelli’s portfolio of hybrid decoders
    brings together IPTV and digital terrestrial TV in one multimedia
    platform, enabling a wide range of content bundles to be secured
    through conditional access system standards and digital rights
    management technologies. Pirelli’s set-top boxes are based on
    single-chip technology and support legacy and new encoding standards
    such as H.264 and VC-1 at both standard and high definition. Pirelli
    set-top boxes can be equipped with hard drives of various storage
    capacities, providing additional capabilities such as local video
    recording, recorded-services playback, live TV pause, and time-shift
    recording.
  • Servers and storage. Sun Microsystems Inc.’s
    Sun Fire x64 servers are the newest carrier-class servers to have been
    tested against the high-performance IPTV platforms from Microsoft.



“With IPTV deployments now happening in most major regions around the
world, the market is entering a new phase,” said Vince Vittore, senior
analyst at Yankee Group. “The addition of these new technology
companies to Microsoft’s IPTV ecosystem is a clear indicator that the
IPTV industry has reached a new level of maturity. Service providers
will benefit by having more technology options and the flexibility to
deploy a solution that best meets their specific business objectives
and the needs of their subscribers.”

“Microsoft’s commitment to the IPTV industry is not only to deliver a
comprehensive end-to-end IPTV Edition software platform, but to
constantly ensure that industry-leading solutions in all areas can work
with our platform to enhance its features and functionalities,” said
Joe Seidel, director of the Worldwide Partner Ecosystem for the
Microsoft TV Division at Microsoft. “With the relationships we are
announcing today, we add another layer of support for our service
provider customers as they continue to deploy IPTV services to
consumers worldwide.”

This host of new IPTV ecosystem partners joins a broad group of leading
hardware and software providers already working with Microsoft TV to
make IPTV a reality. These include systems integrator and
infrastructure provider Alcatel-Lucent; set-top box manufacturers Cisco
Systems Inc. (Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company), Motorola Inc.,
Philips and Tatung Co.; chip manufacturers Sigma Design Inc. and
STMicroelectronics; server solution providers HP and IBM Corp.; and
encoder providers Cisco Systems (Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company),
Harmonic Inc., Motorola and TANDBERG Television.

Microsoft TV IPTV Edition continues to improve its standing in the
industry with deployments under way with nine leading service providers
and trials with seven additional providers, representing a footprint
across 15 countries on four continents. The IPTV Edition platform will
be demonstrated at Microsoft’s booth at NAB2007 (South Hall 1, Stand
SL3213, Las Vegas Convention Center).

About the Microsoft TV Platform

The award-winning Microsoft TV platform is a family of software
solutions that help TV service providers create and deliver new digital
TV services that delight consumers. Designed to help cable providers
and telecommunications companies derive more value from their digital
video and network infrastructure investments, the Microsoft TV family
supports a full range of services including interactive program guides,
digital video recording, high-definition TV, on-demand programming and
Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) services. The Microsoft TV platform works
across a full range of set-top boxes and TV devices. More information
about Microsoft TV can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/tv.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses
realize their full potential.

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