A trio of heavy-hitters -- Alcatel SA, Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. -- is teaming up to jointly develop and market server products aimed at IPTV deployments.
The partnership builds in part on existing electronics-manufacturing agreements between H-P and Alcatel. By optimizing H-P’s server products to support Microsoft TV’s “IPTV Edition” service software and combining that with Alcatel's overarching “Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture,” the three companies hope to provide a more complete product for telco and Internet TV players and speed their time to rollout of IPTV services.
"Our focus as a company remains on meeting the needs of our customers," said Monika Maurer, president of Alcatel's fixed-solutions activities. "By leveraging H-P's proven server solutions, we can provide deeper levels of integration throughout each piece of the triple-play value chain. This enables us to provide solutions to our customers that truly address their needs and help them reduce the time to market, cost and complexity associated with sophisticated triple-play deployments."
"Today's announcement demonstrates the growing momentum of the IPTV industry," said Christine Heckart, general manager of marketing for the Microsoft TV division. "Service providers benefit from increased system performance and enhanced architecture scalability that result when industry-leading companies such as H-P join the IPTV ecosystem."
The three companies will also set up a joint-marketing alliance to direct sales for the integrated products.
