The deal also confirms Ericsson’s commitment to become a dominant player in Video Distribution across multiple networks and devices. The same was statted by Borgklint, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Support Solutions at Ericsson in a statement.
Photo: Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Borgklint said: “Mediaroom is the leading platform for video distribution deployed with the world’s largest IPTV operators. This strategic acquisition positions Ericsson as an industry leader thanks to the skills and experiences of the talented people of Mediaroom combined with Ericsson’s end to end service capabilities.” The price at which the deal has gone through is also disclosed yet but the same is estimated to be around $200 million.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Mediaroom is situated in Mountain View, California and employs more than 400 people worldwide. Some of its major clients include AT&T U-verse, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, TELUS Optik TV and Swisscom. Mediaroom has more than 22 million set top box users around the world.
However, with companies like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) already in the race for Video distribution business, acquiring new business will not be a cakewalk. At the beginning of 2007, Microsoft Corporation integrated IPTV with its Xbox 360. Now, with this deal, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) will be able to focus on its gaming platform Xbox 360 as its closest rival in gaming space, Sony is also looking at this this sector.
In the spirit of this move, we hereby present major milestones achieved by Microsoft’s Mediaroom in last six years:
2006 – 2009
March 21, 2006: Deutsche Telekom Partners With Microsoft to Launch IPTV Services
January 8, 2007: Gaming platform Xbox 360 integrated with IPTV
November 25, 2009: ES3, One of the Mediaroom application takes first place in TV apps contest
2009
November 25, 2009: Mediaroom services generated video-on-demand (VoD) average revenue per user (ARPUs) that were on average 3x higher.
December 2 2009: Mediaroom customer MTS Allstream recognised with the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Award for Competitive Strategy Leadership for performance in the North American video market.
December 14 2009: Deutsche Telekom brings DVR Anywhere to its Entertain TV service
2009 – 2010
December 17 2009: Vodafone Casa TV became available on Xbox 360
January 7, 2010: AT&T U-verse TV coming to Xbox 360
February 3, 2010: TELUS launched TELUS TV service in Western Canada, powered by Microsoft Mediaroom
2010-2013
April 8, 2013: Agreement between Ericsson and Microsoft to acquire Mediaroom
