IPTV - Internet Protocol TV

Last generation was very much familiar with satellite televisions, Conditional access , dish TV or TATA sky, next is IPTV.

IPTV is Internet protocol television. This is digital television through broad band as it is connected with the broad band the facilities like video on demand, games, interactive services & personalized are made available.

The IPTV combines 3 features voice over IP, excessing the web & on demand contents for TV, audio & games.This concept was first introduced in 1995 by Judith Estren & Bill Carrico. They introduced the service with both Windows & Unix. The videos are stored in compressed form. They are sent in MPEC transport stream and delivered via multi cast in case of live television & video on demand.

Following figure shows the working of IPTV.

The SETUP BOX convert I.P signals back to TV Signals and vice versa. IPTV uses the ordinary telephone line or broad band network for content delivery.

In India the services provided by IOL broad band with the help of MTNL and BSNL currently the service is available in 5 cities which was started in October 2006. Airtel has introduce this service in December 07 in Delhi. Reliance is in talks with Microsoft for the same.

MTNL is giving this service for 200 Rs. as monthly rental and 1000 Rs. installation charges.You can search the contents with user friendly interphase. You can record your favorite shows. You can access your photos and music from your personal computer.IPTV also have contents like trailors, movies, videos, health shows, sports shows available for just for Rs. 10 to Rs. 80 per view. These contents are available for 24 hours so you can view it as per your convenience.

IPTV is interactive as it permits two-way communication you can get the IPTV on a regular telephone line with telephone and normal web access. It can also be extended to provide TV commerce services.

IPTV still has long way to go as it phases many challenges. Real time data transmission is still a dream in traditional telephone networks. The penetration of broad band network in the countries like India is very low.

Content Management is the important part of the IPTV. The content Management applies to both the programes shown on the TV as well as to the advertising through which they geenrated the money. The advertising is the customer oriented and is different for different customers; hence the job of the IPTV providers is compolex. They have to manage the advertisement and show according to the customer type. As the bandwidth is less the encoding of contents before putting it up on the network is quiet necessary. The IPTV content management also deals with the Rights management of the programs they will be storing and showing to the customers. As the contents are created by different producers, TV compnaies and individuals, it is the responsibility of the IPTV providers to protect the Right of their respective owners. The innovative billing system is also necessary to address the diverse nature of access pattern of the users.

As the service is economical and of good quality, its performance is expected to grow upto 75000 customers by 2011. Some big players are expected to join the army of IPTV providers, which will boost the investment in this area.

Gooooooogling the Yahoo Between Microsoft and Google

The desktop software leader had started another wave in information technology world by offering about 45 billion-dollar to worlds no one portal yahoo.com. Microsoft being the leader in the desktop world was concerned about its position in the Internet world. Googles innovative style of management, latest style of marketing & leading position of search domain on the internet forces the Microsoft to go for such hostile takeover. For the first time, Microsoft will borrow the money from the capital market for this take over said Chris Liddell CFO, Microsoft. Earlier Microsoft had acquired an online advertising company in august last.

Six months ago Goldman Sachs had done Yahoo buyout feasiblity study for Microsoft through JP Morgan Securities. Then deal was valued at $50 Billion.

Yahoo is clicking because Microsoft and Yahoo struggle to compete with google for the lucrative online advertising market. Online advertising market is currently worht $ 40 billion and expected to grow to $80 billion by 2010.

There was other person in the picture i.e. Rupert Murdock. He recently acquired Wall Street Journal.

The competition between Microsoft and Google:

Now yahoo bosses are reconsidering an earlier alliance, which was proposed several months ago by Google. Yahoo may consider the offer from some other bidders only to increase the bid amount by the Microsoft. When Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer move towards Yahoo, it was natural unrest for the peoples in Googleplex. Yahoo is the number one portal & Number one place for the advertising. Chief Legal Officer ‘David Drummond of Google accused Microsoft of seeking its monopoly in the desktop market deeper into the Internet domain. He called on the policy makers to challenge the combination, because it will undermine the competition on the Internet.

Desi Effect:

Google may loose its pricing power in the country after Yahoo goes to Microsoft. Small dotcom companies in India may also be effect in this situation for the advertising revenue they get from the Google. The two strong places for the advertisers will make the market more competitive. It is also possible that Yahoo and Microsoft together will compete against Google more effectively with its search related product advertising. Google and Gmail enjoy 32.3 % in India, Yahoo is 26.6 % & MSN, which is owned by Microsoft, is only 1.9 %.

Earlier Deals in Information Technology Space:

In 2000 AOL buys Time Warner for $164 billion creating AOL Time warner. This was the major meger of _______ & ________ creating the new company of _______ $. In 2006 Google acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion. eBay acquired Paypal for $1.5 billion. Microsoft acquired Hotmail for $400 million from Sabir Bhatia in 1998. If this deal goes through it will be biggest merger in the Information Technology space after Time-warner acquisition. Microsoft last acquired a Desktop visualization solution compnay ‘Calista Technologies’ founded by an Indian technie Anil Kumar. With Microsoft’s reputation as ‘a destroyer of companies ‘does not expect any particular fireworks in the industry. Microsoft brought Sabir Bhatias Hotmail in 1990 but fail to make it a learder in the email space.

Yahoo was founded by the two Stanford graduates Jerry yang & David Filo in 1995. It was one of the first companies to popularise web searches going back to the mid-90. In last few years Google has gone ahead of Yahoo in recent years. Yahoo’s net income is $660 million with 13,600 employees.

Earlier Yahoo was named as Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web", which was the personal interest of web sites. Yahoo also progvide different mobile services like moblogging i.e. bloogin through mobiles.

Other person David Flengo is the businessman

In a recent speech Jerry Yang CEO of Yahoo at Consumer electronics shows in Las Vegas. He apologyies for the poor results of Yahoo, Yang revealed yahoo’s final quarter profits had fallen to 23%. He promised change and better times ahead.

Bill Gates & Paul Allen founded Microsoft in 1975. Ithas net Income of $14.06 billion with 79,000 employees.

Google is known for innovating working culture, environment friendly corporate offices like Googleplex.Google was founded Ph.D dropouts Larry Page and Sergey Brin from Standford University,

Google is popularly known as most innovative and fast searching facility avialable on the web. With most innovative products like Google Video, Google Calender, News, Finance, Map and Earth it is more favourite on the Internet domain. Google is also set to release free office software. Google will also be in the mobile telephony business. Google provide free wireless Internet service in the Moutain View, California.

Google acquired the Pyra Labs and blogger. Most recent was the youtube and doubleclick. It also has acquired postini as messaging security Firm.