Underscoring its commitment to open standards in emerging technologies and media platforms Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS), the worldwide leader in video solutions, has become a full member of the Open IPTV Forum.
The aim of the Forum is to promote IPTV by making it easy for consumers to experience and enjoy it, ensuring interactivity between all devices, networks and technologies. Leveraging its expertise in end-to-end IPTV solutions including network platforms and home devices, Thomson joins forces with other telecom industry leaders in defining standards for delivering new advanced multimedia services and shaping the future of the broadband market.
The Open IPTV Forum is a pan-industry initiative, formed in 2007 by the world’s largest operators and equipment vendors, to produce end to end specifications for IPTV, enabling a “plug and play” experience for users, without concerns about the underlying technologies. This includes interoperability of devices within the home environment and with third party applications to enable a wide range of interactive services for the user. To achieve this ease of use in a complex application such as IPTV is challenging, and depends on comprehensive, well specified and open standards.
“We see the Open IPTV Forum as the right body to be developing these standards, with a critical mass of key players behind it” said Patrick Montliaud, Senior Vice President of Thomson’s Networks and Integration Solutions business unit. “By becoming a member of the Open IPTV Forum, we are committing significant engineering resources to make the necessary open standards a reality and to open up the true potential of IPTV.”
Thomson is committed to the development and propagation of open standards in all its activities, and currently has a participating role in more than 60 international standards development organizations including the ETSI’s TISPAN* for IPTV standardization in IMS*, the DVB Project and the HD Forum. Large, scaleable IPTV deployments have become a reality, and compliance with internationally recognized open standards has been a key success factor for Thomson.
Thomson is unique in being able to provide a complete end-to-end solution for IPTV and Triple Play, from head ends to consumer premises equipment. Thomson’s SmartVision is, according to analysts MRG Inc, the market leader in IPTV video service platforms and video servers. Thomson is positioned as an industry expert with the most comprehensive and advanced package of triple-play solutions.
*The Telecoms and Internet converged Services and Protocols for Advanced Networks (TISPAN) is the standardisation defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) for the convergence of telecommunications over fixed, internet and mobile networks.
**IMS: IP Multimedia Subsystem
Certain statements in this press release, including any discussion of management expectations for future periods, constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements due to changes in global economic and business conditions, “media and entertainment” markets, and regulatory factors. More detailed information on the potential factors that could affect the financial results of Thomson is contained in Thomson’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
About Thomson: the worldwide leader in video solutions
Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) is the world leading provider of solutions for the creation, management, delivery and access of video, for the Communication, Media & Entertainment (CME) industries. Our clients are studios, broadcasters, network operators (telcos, broadband, satellite and cable operators) and an increasing range of professional users of videos. We deliver superior value to our customers through a unique combination of industry leading technologies, systems and services, enabling us to offer differentiated and innovative end-to-end solutions based on a broad portfolio of Intellectual Property. At the cross-roads of the CME industries, leveraging our core competencies in video but also audio, data and voice, we enable our customers to take advantage of the growth opportunities brought on by the digital convergence revolution. For more information: http://www.thomson.net.
