REDMOND, Washington, July 9 --
- The service will provide hotel guests with access to a highly customized
in-room TV experience including interactive applications.
Viapass (http://www.viapass.com/Index.aspx), the French network services and
telecoms operator, has selected Microsoft Mediaroom
(http://www.microsoft.com/mediaroom/) with virtualization as the software
platform to deliver a breakthrough Internet Protocol television (IPTV) service
to its business customers worldwide through its division Viapass TV.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)
The Viapass TV service enables hotels and Viapass’s other business
customers, such as major hospitals and luxury residences, to take advantage of
the Mediaroom platform to deliver a customized TV service, including live TV,
high-definition TV, video on demand and rich interactive TV applications, over a
private Internet Protocol network.
Hotel operators are excited by the possibilities offered by next-generation
IPTV, said Eric Legros, sales and marketing manager for Viapass. They have
already started to talk about our Microsoft Mediaroom-based solution as the most
advanced hospitality juke box on the market. With Mediaroom, we can bring them a
cost-effective platform that offers guests a highly personalized TV service with
an extensive lineup of live and on-demand high-definition content as well as
innovative information and service applications. Hotel guests are accustomed to
a sophisticated TV viewing experience at home, and hotel operators, especially
in the luxury sector, need to ensure that the TV experience they offer matches
or even surpasses this, helping them to differentiate from their competitors,
drive services revenue and attract and retain clientele.
In addition to enabling the delivery of a great lineup of digital TV channels
and an extensive video on demand library, the Mediaroom platform provides an
applications platform for Viapass and its customers to add innovative TV
applications tailored to meet the needs of their guests. Possibilities include
up-to-the minute travel information and financial and personalized news
applications.
As the official Internet and network services provider for all events hosted by
Cannes Palais des Festivals et des Congres, Viapass is also able to distribute
special event content, or even specific TV channels such as TV Festival (which
broadcasts live during the Cannes Film Festival), via the Mediaroom platform for
hotel guests to watch in their rooms.
Viapass initially targeted the French Riviera market, where the company
provides high-profile Internet and network services for many of the large
hotels. Viapass is already seeing significant interest from international chains
looking to use this Mediaroom-powered service to extend their TV services to
hotels across Europe and overseas. Viapass also has been discussing this
solution with key organizations in the healthcare industry, and a number of
large hospitals are already very interested in this Mediaroom-powered solution.
Viapass TV is expected to be the first customer in Europe to launch a service
using Mediaroom with virtualization
(http://www.microsoft.com/Mediaroom/PR/VirtualizationPR.aspx), in the last
quarter of 2009. The use of Mediaroom with virtualization enables Viapass TV to
deploy a full-featured IPTV service with greatly reduced hardware requirements
at a customer site in a matter of weeks. In addition to network engineering and
integration, Viapass TV will handle all content acquisition and management,
while partnering with Cisco Systems Inc. for networking equipment, and with
several providers for set-top boxes.
Virtualization has enabled Microsoft to extend the Mediaroom footprint to new
markets, said Colin Morrison, EMEA sales director for the TV, Video and Music
Business at Microsoft Corp. We’re delighted that Viapass TV has chosen to
use our technology to deliver a groundbreaking IPTV service for the hospitality
industry. Mediaroom enables Viapass TV customers to offer their guests the very
best in connected entertainment.
About Microsoft Mediaroom
The award-winning Microsoft Mediaroom Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and
multimedia software platform is the most widely deployed IPTV platform in the
world. Mediaroom is driving the future of television by enabling broadband
service providers to deliver new connected TV and entertainment experiences to
consumers worldwide. It provides new ways for consumers to experience TV as part
of their connected, digital lifestyle, while also creating new business
opportunities for broadband service providers, hardware manufacturers, content
creators, advertisers and application developers. Over 20 of the world’s
leading service providers across four continents have selected the Mediaroom
platform to drive their digital TV services. More information on Mediaroom and
the opportunity to deliver the best in TV plus all your media in one place is
available at http://www.microsoft.com/Mediaroom.
About Viapass TV
Viapass TV is a Division of Viapass SAS, a French operator for Network
engineering and Internet Access. The company and most of Viapass staff have been
supplying Internet and network service and managing small, medium and large
events on the French Riviera and Barcelona for more than 10 years. Viapass is
the Official Internet and Network Services Provider for all events hosted by
Cannes Palais des Festivals et des Congres and is also the official supplier for
numerous large events in Europe. Viapass TV benefits from Viapass SAS experience
in best-in-class events services. The Viapass TV Website is www.viapass.tv.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software,
services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full
potential.
SOURCE: Microsoft Corp
Edelman Mediaroom PR Team, +1-206-223-1606, TVMMediaroom@edelman.com, for
Microsoft; or Eric Legros, sales and marketing manager of Viapass,
+33(0)4-97-06-30-06, e.legros@viapass.com / NOTE TO EDITORS: If you are
interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the
Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft’s
corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were
correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional
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