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Big Players to Takeover IPTV Market
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, Jan 9, 2007
Larger players in the internet protocol television (IPTV) market acquiring companies, providing niche technology and equipment in the sector, may eventually spell doom for the smaller players.
Michael Arden, principal analyst, ABI Research, remarks that the pool of independent IPTV solutions vendors keeps on shrinking, creating a market gap, which will affect smaller telecom operators.
An ABI study on Telco Video Infrastructure: Analysis of IP Video Encoders, Servers and other Headend Equipment in Telecom Networks takes a cue from the December 21, 2006 acquisition of Tut Systems by Motorola, and an earlier move by Ericsson's to acquire Redback Networks to strengthen their stand in the IPTV market.
It says, "A space of corporate acquisitions is re-drawing the competitive landscape in the world of IPTV and Telco TV, with far reaching consequences for all members of the IP video ecosystem." It also details vendor activities from contracts to business plans and mergers and acquisitions. It takes into account emerging operations decisions that telecom video providers take to combat competitive threats, leverage revenue and integrate services.
"It isn't worth to the likes of Motorola to be developing products for those 3000-5000 subscriber networks," says Arden. "So the needs of the smaller operators are no longer being met, and other companies are trying to break into that market positioned as suppliers of smaller solutions."
So the industry is seeing a shift in market clout, towards the large vendor that can provide everything, as opposed to going with 'best of breed' from a number of small vendors. While this bolsters the position of companies such as Motorola and Alcatel, which increasingly offer end-to-end IPTV solutions, it removes companies that had addressed the needs of medium-to-small operators.
"Those first IP video equipment providers were small startups creating cutting-edge technologies that the larger vendors weren't nimble enough to do themselves," says Arden. "Lately, as IPTV technology becomes more important - not only for Telco TV but also for cable and satellite - the big companies need those technologies, and they are going out and acquiring the small companies that were the first ones in the market."
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Will it wipe out smaller players in the bargain?
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