Out with Microsoft TV, in with Tablets

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Out with Microsoft TV, in with Tablets

By PETER WHITE

Published: 30 March, 2012

The tablet is already responsible for a lot of things, and over time we are sure that it will continue to have a bigger and bigger impact, but already it has changed the perception of TV services for Telcos around the world.

For the past two years every pay TV operator has been staring at what is just short of HD quality video on tablets (and which with the iPad 3 moves up to full HD) and being told - your customers want this. And yet their key supplier Microsoft has been unable to deliver it.

Not only has Microsoft Mediaroom been unable to produce its own tablet, but it has been unwilling to target non-Microsoft tablets. In fact it has been stymied with virtually no stable roadmap or leadership at all. While the senior management of Microsoft has been dithering over the new form factor, the lack of ultimate leadership has led to most of the leading members of the Mediaroom team leaving.

But Microsoft is not the only company with a problem. AT&T, which uses Mediaroom, as well as Verizon, which uses something similar, and Swisscom and Deutsche Telekom and a host of around 24 tier one telcos, are all left high and dry. They want an all singing, all dancing, all tablet and smart TV strategy and all the major suppliers are trying to fill the technology vacuum left by Mediaroom. Step up Cisco, Alcatel, Huawei and of course Ericsson.

This revolution has happened oh so quietly, and these companies cannot believe their luck and plan to court each one of those Tier 1 telcos with an OTT surround strategy of their own.

Rethink has established the leading report on OTT in Europe and the summary can be downloaded at www.rethinkresearch.biz/ott. Not a single OTT services has been built purely on Microsoft technology as every one of Europe's 125 plus pay TV operators scrabble for multiscreen video with internet delivery.

In our paid sister paper Faultline this week, we included two major analysis pieces one listing all the efforts of the various telecom equipment majors and how they plan to fill this void entitled New world order to emerge from wreckage of IPTV and Mediaroom, and how Cisco in buying NDS, has chosen the wrong company, and it is TiVo which is making all the waves next generation TV, see TiVo - undefeated champion of next gen TV - so do we have any offers? In the previous week, Faultline revealed exclusively how Cisco's $5 billion gamble to buy NDs was all about stealing the Mediaroom crown in Feeding on the rotting corpse of a 7 year old failed IPTV strategy.

For FREE copies of both issues go to www.rethinkresearch.biz/faultline to order the issues or link directly to www.rethinkresearch.biz to read them online.