The ubiquitous Colin Dixon, chief IP media analyst at The Diffusion Group has penned a provocative essay on what he sees as the end of the Alcatel-Microsoft tie-up for the IPTV space. Dixon attributes the impending breakup to two lawsuits that Alcatel filed November 17th in which the company accuses Microsoft of violating seven patents. Some of the patents pertain to IP video. The patents originated from engineers at Oracle, who later joined Microsoft. Oracle, however, sold the patents to a company called Thirdspace, which Alcatel acquired. Dixon's inference is that the Microsoft engineers inserted the patented technology into the Microsoft IPTV suite under the assumption that the friendly partnership with Alcatel would somehow forgive it. No doings. While this is only Dixon's opinion (he claims no inside knowledge), it's an opinion that should be taken seriously as Dixon is arguably the foremost research analyst in the sector.
For more on the possible split between Alcatel and Microsoft:
- see this opinion piece from TDG