The Hindu : Business : RCom joins hands with Microsoft

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Tuesday, Nov 06, 2007
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RCom joins hands with Microsoft

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: PTI

NEW EXPERIENCE: Anil Ambani (left), Chairman, Reliance Communications, with Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft, at a press conference in Mumbai on Monday.

MUMBAI: Reliance Communications (RCL) and Microsoft have announced a strategic partnership to deliver a highly connected, personalized TV experience to consumers in India through Reliance’s Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service, which will be powered by Microsoft’s ‘Mediaroom’ IPTV software platform. RCL should have the exclusive deployment right for the platform in India and has paid Microsoft $ 500 million for the software technical licence for the next few years.

Reliance’s IPTV service will allow the company to deliver entirely new, connected and personalised television experiences for Indian consumers with several advanced features like video-on-demand (VOD), digital video recording (DVR), instant channel changing, and personal media sharing. IPTV subscribers will be able to watch popular standard definition (SD) content as well as high definition (HD) content – for the first time in India. The service is to be first in Mumbai and Delhi and will be launched by fiscal end (March 2008).

Addressing the media, Anil D. Ambani, Chairman, RCL, said, the future areas of cooperation between the companies would include a rural broadband project to bring connectivity to the masses in cooperation with state governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs“Reliance is about to change the way consumers experience television,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft. “TV is the only major digital device that has been left out of the networking revolution, and Microsoft and Reliance are now making the TV a first class citizen in the connected entertainment landscape.”

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