At the GlobalComm trade show in Chicago this week, Ericsson announced its entrance into the IPTV market through a partnership with Kasenna. The two companies plan to develop and provide IPTV software and middleware. The companies have yet to announce any customer wins.
While the news is not surprising, Ericsson is, by many accounts, a late-comer to the IPTV market: Competitors Alcatel and Siemens have already forged deals and announced partnerships with the other big players. Alcatel is working with Microsoft on its IPTV solution and Siemens acquired Myrio last year for its end-to-end IPTV solution. Ericsson says there's still plenty of opportunities in IPTV since most carriers are only just beginning to trial and test IPTV solutions. "Scaling these deployments is going to be challenging," Ericsson's director of multimedia solutions Anders Bergtoft said. "We are the largest service integrator, and we know about scalability."
For more on Ericsson's move into the IPTV market:
- see this article from CNET