SAN JOSE, Calif. - April 23, 2007 - IBM (NYSE: IBM), the global leader in information technology services, today announced a new internet protocol television (IPTV) infrastructure solution for service providers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa who want to offer next-generation IPTV entertainment services along with their data and voice services.
The new IPTV infrastructure solution from IBM will assist clients in optimizing network usage, establishing competitive differentiation and entering new service areas with comprehensive IPTV services. The solution will utilize Cisco's IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture to deliver advanced video services. IBM will provide business consulting, technical consulting, implementation services and flexible financing services from IBM Global Financing while Cisco, together with Scientific Atlanta, a Cisco company, will deliver the next-generation IP and video infrastructure for the IPTV portion of the triple-play solution.
Service providers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa are seeking to build state-of-the art technology platforms in order to offer new video-based services to their customers. Their aim is to attract customers and gain a competitive advantage by offering next-generation entertainment services as the vital component. IBM Global Technology Services will help clients plan, design, deploy and support their IPTV solutions, empowering firms to overcome technology challenges associated with multiple legacy networks and to become dynamic triple-play providers delivering voice, data and video services on a single IP network.
"We had the need for a more structured approach, both on the architectural front and also on finding the right solutions for building a proper and reliable IPTV platform," said Birger Hauge, CIO, Dansk Bredbånd. "IBM and Cisco worked with us to implement a full IPTV solution. Without the support of these global technology leaders, Dansk Bredbånd would have had to procure, install and configure numerous architectural components to build the converged network, which would have been complex and time-consuming. IBM and Cisco proved to be invaluable by efficiently helping us to complete the infrastructure in a timely manner. The solution is helping us to attract new customers and increasing the revenue per subscriber."
"Service providers face significant business challenges such as increasing market share, reducing customer churn and increasing the average revenue per user," says Laurence Guihard-Joly, IBM vice president, Integrated Communications Services. "Drawing upon IBM Global Technology Services' proven methods, intellectual capital and expertise in IPTV infrastructure technology, the new IPTV infrastructure solution will help clients implement a solution tailored to address key challenges and to meet their immediate and long-term business objectives."
"This new IPTV infrastructure solution is an extension of IBM's long-standing alliance with Cisco," said Geraint Anderson, Vice President for Service Providers in European Markets at Cisco. "The combination of Cisco's IP NGN integrated with Scientific Atlanta's video headend solution gives service providers the ideal integrated, end-to-end IPTV infrastructure to simplify multi-service, multi-device and multi-transport service delivery. IBM's ability to deliver the proven best practices and expert resources to manage the transformation to IPTV is an essential ingredient for those providers who don't have this technology and business consulting expertise in-house."
As a part of this solution, IBM is also announcing today a new service product, IBM Converged Communications Services for IPTV infrastructure which delivers technical consulting, integration and implementation services. More specifically, IBM will perform the following:
- Solution definition workshop
- Network consulting
- Readiness assessment
- Network design assessment
- Network diagnostic assessment
- Network integration and deployment
- Digital video integration and deployment
- Middleware and video-on-demand integration and deployment
The IPTV infrastructure solution incorporates best-of-breed IBM hardware, software and services along with Cisco products to provide a complete solution, standard components include: IBM BladeCenter and xSeries Servers; software products from IBM WebSphere, Tivoli and Lotus brands; and Cisco end-to-end IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) solutions. The new solution also leverages Linux technology.
The IBM IPTV infrastructure solution will be sold through IBM Global Technology Services and Cisco with general availability in most countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during 2Q 2007.
For more information on IBM visit www.ibm.com.
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