Telecoms company Alcatel Lucent has announced a strategic alliance with thePlatform – a white-label online video management and publishing company.
The idea is to help cable and IPTV providers deliver video services to their subscribers TVs, PCs, tablets, mobile phones, and other devices.
The companies first joint offering is a multiscreen video platform that supports the delivery of live scheduled TV, Video-on-Demand (VOD) and TV everywhere services to a variety of screens, allowing pay-TV subscribers to access their video content in the home or on mobile devices.
The solution optimises video distribution through a content delivery network (CDN) deployed by the service provider.
Derrick Frost, SVP of global IP video solutions at Alcatel-Lucent says: “Consumer demand for anywhere, anytime video services is exploding and our customers are looking for an edge. Alcatel-Lucents leadership in IPTV and content delivery networks, coupled with our strategic alliance with thePlatform provides a unique suite of capabilities that allow service providers to offer the best of traditional pay-TV and online video worlds to their customers.” 
Ian Blaine, CEO of thePlatform says: “Expanding the use of our capabilities beyond online and mobile video to manage TV itself represents a significant new business opportunity for thePlatform. Alcatel-Lucents strong customer relationships and experience in the service provider space will help us reach a broader set of customers than was possible previously. Our joint solution will enable pay-TV providers to create groundbreaking consumer services that unify content delivery across any screen.”
The partnerships multiscreen video platform is made up of three components: Multiscreen Cloud is a cloud-based video-management system for multi-screen publishing; Multiscreen CDN is the Content Delivery Network; and Multiscreen Clients are subscriber apps designed to support video playback on various devices.
The elements can be deployed as a group or individually, say the companies.
