Open IPTV Forum

The IPTV market is hot, so it is quite normal that players in the game try to create an open, standards-based solution. Vendors and carriers have a lot of interest to use non-proprietary solutions, so the Open IPTV Forum seems a serious initiative to use recognized standards in IPTV deployments. The Forum is open to any company that shares its goals and wants to contribute to specification development. They target to provide the initial set of technology-related specifications by the end of this year. Among the members are Ericsson, Siemens, ATT and Telecom Italia. Surprisingly, ALU and Microsoft are not members. So, is the Open IPTV Forum directed against the market leaders by deceived operators, helped by frustrated competitors? Who knows? But the presence of ATT and Telecom Italia, two ALU-Microsoft customers, the presence of Ericsson and Siemens, two competitors that try to enter the market and downsize the ALU-Microsoft domination, let me think it is just a (clever?) tactics. Surprisingly, other big IPTV names are not there also: Cisco, Tandberg, Kasenna, Nortel, NDS, Minerva, Orca, Thomson or ZTE to name only few. I do not think these guys can stay out if they want to play a role in the market. So, the Open IPTV Forum Board should evolve a lot in coming months.