Coming on the heels of Thomson's announcement last week that it would
acquire Canopus, Thomson makes the headlines again with yesterday's
announcement that it will purchase Thales Broadcast & Multimedia
(TBM) business unit, which provides platforms for IPTV services (TV
services over the Internet), video-on-demand, mobile TV, and designs
digital TV and radio broadcasting systems and equipment. Additionally
Thomson also described a strategic partnership with Thales, the parent
company of TBM and a leading international electronics group.
"Together with the Canopus acquisition Thomson will be uniquely
positioned to offer an end to end video solution from content creation
to delivery to consumption," said Christophe Delahousse, Vice President
of Networking for the Grass Valley business within Thomson.
Thomson representatives identified this acquisition as part of its two
year plan to make major inroads into the electronic content
distribution market and its directive to accelerate of the delivery of
IP-based technologies. Thomson will leverage TBM's experise and
technology to provide cellular operators with a complete set of Mobile
TV solutions, from content creation to delivery-but using terrestrial
television technologies that are more suited for video than cellular
infrastructures.
"This puts Thomson at the center of IPTV service," said Delahousse. "We expect IPTV to grow 20 percent a year"
For IPTV, Thomson will be able to offer the software and distribution
infrastructure that deliver live programming and VOD services to the
set-top boxes through which users access that content. According to Thomson, broadband
services are available to more than 100 million households worldwide.