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This week the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) are holding their annual convention and Microsoft was there touting their wares. The big Microsoft news was the announcement of some new reference content provider customers and the promise for later this year of DRM (AKA copy protection) for their Silverlight “Flash killer”:
Today Microsoft unveiled details of Silverlight DRM, Powered by PlayReady, the content protection support coming later this year in Silverlight. Silverlight DRM builds on Microsoft’s extensive expertise and experience in content protection and support for hundreds of millions of media players and devices worldwide.
In addition to being compatible with the broadly deployed base of Windows Media DRM 10 content, Silverlight DRM will support live streaming, on-demand streaming and progressive downloads for connected experiences. With the extensibility and openness of Silverlight, third-party solution providers will also be able to build and offer content owners additional choices for their media protection needs.
Microsoft apparently intends to continue their dominance in commercial media DRM software and connoisseurs of the genre will recognize PlayReady as Microsoft’s DRM successor to the the ill-fated PlaysForSure technology that Microsoft threw overboard (along with some unfortunate partners) when they released the Zune.
Other announcements:
Bill Gates delivered his last Microsoft keynote at the International Consumer Electronics Show yesterday and it was fortunately missing a lot of the goofy geek tech of recent years although the more staid and occasionally self-congratulatory tone has drawn some complaints about lack of Microsoft innovation ([1], [ 2]). You can catch the replay video online, but here’s a rundown of the new announcements:
Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Microsoft Mediaroom, the latest update to its award-winning Internet Protocol television (IPTV) software platform, featuring several new multimedia capabilities, including in-home personal music and photo sharing, dynamic MultiView (multiple picture-in-picture) capabilities, Multimedia Application Environment for development of interactive services and advanced applications, and digital terrestrial television (DTT) support. Microsoft also introduced the Microsoft Mediaroom Application Development toolkit, which provides service providers and third-party developers with tools to create compelling, revenue-generating TV-based applications that run on the platform.
With this latest release, Microsoft is renaming its IPTV platform Microsoft Mediaroom to better reflect the broader set of new connected entertainment experiences made possible today and the types of experiences anticipated in the future.
Microsoft’s Enrique Rodriguez, corporate vice president, Microsoft TV Business tries to explain the branding rationale and provides an update on the state of Microsoft’s TV business.
Update: Ina Fried provides a nice retrospective on Microsoft’s not always glorious history in the TV business.
Back in January, it was reported that AT&T had suspended it’s IPTV program until some problems with Microsoft software were resolved. Now the partners say everything is back on track:
AT&T Inc.’s push into cable TV is ramping back up after a pause prompted by glitches that the company says have been resolved with key network software upgrades.
Over the past two weeks, AT&T resumed direct mailings and distribution of promotional “door hangers” for the new U-verse television service, the first marketing activities since those efforts were suspended starting in October.
…
To provide such robust capabilities over the plain copper phone wires connected to most homes, AT&T is using relatively unproven technology known as IPTV, short for Internet Protocol TV. That approach has enabled AT&T to spend only a fraction of the $23 billion Verizon Communications Inc. is investing to rewire half its local phone network with fiber-optic lines all the way to each home.But because the software, provided largely by Microsoft Corp., has never been deployed on such a large scale, assorted glitches have forced AT&T to repeatedly delay and scale back the service rollout even though the required network upgrade remains on pace.
“We have had our fits and starts, but right now we feel we’re in a pretty good place,” John Stankey, AT&T’s group president for operations support, said in an interview. The deployment of the latest software for the system was completed in early February, he said, stressing that the upgrade addressed many “small annoyances” rather than any one big problem.
The systems are now operating smoothly enough that, “We’re ready to play the game and put numbers on the board,” he said.
Microsoft, which has encountered multiple bumps in its early dominance of the IPTV software market, is “very pleased with the progress we’ve made with AT&T on its software platform” to enable the wider-scale rollout, said spokesman Jim Brady. “These challenges are absolutely behind us.”
The renewed marketing efforts also include a new tactic: door-to-door sales calls, with agents deployed in every neighborhood, began earlier this month.
Sort of like the Avon lady, I guess, only selling Microsoft TV. In any case, the current scorecard reveals that there are:
roughly 7,000 U-verse subscribers, up from 3,000 at the close of 2006, even though AT&T’s network was U-verse-ready in areas with 2.2 million homes at year’s end. By contrast, Verizon had signed up 217,000 homes for FiOS TV by the end of last year, and cable companies lured away hundreds of thousands of AT&T’s phone customers during 2006.
They’re clearly playing catch up. Many more details by following the link.
Jonathan Liss at Seeking Alpha reveals some executive comments made yesterday on AT&T’s earnings call that reveal a rough patch in their joint IPTV efforts:
AT&T is blaming delays in the successful rollout of its IPTV service on glitches in the Microsoft software on which it operates. AT&T’s in-home TV service was supposed to be available in 15 markets by the end of 2006; it has instead only been rolled out in 11, and in limited form. As a result, the Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T CFO Rick Lindner has decided against heavily marketing the service so as not to increase demand until the problems are solved. But AT&T stopped short of losing hope in its partnership with Microsoft or in the effectiveness of its software.
That’s not good news, but delays and glitches always seem to be the norm in video on demand efforts, not just those involving Microsoft.
Update 1/29: More details on the status of Microsoft’s IPTV partnerships from John Blau at InfoWorld including:
AT&T is one of more than 15 network operators in the U.S. and Europe deploying Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software. Several of them, including Swisscom and Deutsche Telekom, have experienced technical hiccups with the platform, forcing them to delay commercial service.
But the two European operators have been able to overcome their technical issues to offer service.
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