Verizon Steps in to Fix Microsoft's IPTV 96
NYGiant writes "Microsoft IPTV isn't cutting it for Verizon, Ars Technica reports, so they've taken over parts of the project. Verizon is in a rush to perfect its IPTV service, which is based on Microsoft's IPTV software. The problem is that to run well, Microsoft's software needs more memory than Verizon's set top boxes ship with. From the article: 'Under the terms of that deal, Verizon would use Microsoft's Foundation Edition middleware stack. Microsoft would also supply a set of customer-facing applications. While Foundation Edition remains in use by Verizon, the development of the other applications was taken over by Verizon engineers.'"
I'm confused (Score:1)
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Not really; Verizon is failing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Rather than dump an innovative flagship product, Verizon decided to get its collective hands dirty to fix problems Microsoft created.
Rather than sabotage the same flagship product with bad publicity about their supplier, Verizon takes over and does things right.
Do you have another BETTER suggestion, or are you just the first (paper) match in a flame war?
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Myself, I'm simpler than that - I just prefer the words I read to make some sort of sense...
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Netcraft confirms it... (Score:2)
If it's a dig at microsoft, no matter how small... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:If it's a dig at microsoft, no matter how small (Score:3, Insightful)
And on a more serious note a major application provider deciding that an MS Solution is too
bloated and impractical to use is hardly small. As a developer and someone who has to carefully
help choose software and the foundation for solutions for my company I'm interested in how major
players like Verizon fare with MS software.
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MFC stood for Microsoft Fucked Class. It took quite a while before people started using it. At 1.X it was complete crap.
Many of their layers tended to be buggy, fat, and slow. Why would anyone be suprised? It is because they are a big company and the PHBs order it used. When at DTS, I had a VP that did not push Microsoft down our throats for development, but that may be because he is an MIT grad and knew the technical aspects.
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It's especially newsworthy in contrast to this week's Apple iTV announcement.
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The bad thing, as history has proven, is that MS is probably going to gain from this by having access to the streamlined code that Verizon makes.
I'm wondering if that was an aspect of their deal that MS was counting on or, now just looking forward to?
How much memory does it take to (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How much memory does it take to (Score:5, Funny)
I knew I should've read your post to the end before replying.
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That's a silly question (Score:2, Funny)
Shocked, I say! (Score:5, Interesting)
Late, buggy, out of spec, and bloated?
Who'da thunk?
Shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
What I don't understand is why all the major TV players are signing on with Microsoft. Every Microsoft IPTV deployment has been buggy, overbudget, late, and required significantly higher requirements than Microsoft's initial stipulations. They must be vastly underbidding everyone else on the market; I'd guess Microsoft is spending hundred of millions, if not billions, on breaking into this market.
I'd love to see one of these Microsoft IPTV deployments flop (I'm betting on SBC's deployment). That'll drive the market away from the Vole, regardless of how cheap they're willing to do the (shoddy, useless) work.
How much it feel to work in one of these Microsoft shops? How does it feel to know that cut-rate out-sourced contracted programmers from India with no background on the project did it better and faster than you? I know that India has a wealth of high-quality programmers, but the general rule is that in-house (especially at major programming shops in the U.S.) is better than out-sourced; just more expensive.
In this case, it seems that with Microsoft you pay more, and get less. Given their monopoly status, I guess that is appropriate. Monopoly-sized market distortions = inefficency. It's too bad that survival of the fittest takes so long to damage a monopoly.
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It's the mantra. In the 1980s it was "nobody evet got fired for buying IBM", today it's "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft".
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The same reason most gas stations don't sell diesel fuel, market share. Also, if a product is shipped with a popular OS the greater the chance stupid f'n people will assume it is the default or required software. If you have ever seen two dumb pieces of sh** argue over which icon, AOL or IE, is the internet without succumbing to the temptation to rip their... sorry.
My point: A perfect example is the number of people that
Re:Shocked, I say! (Score:5, Funny)
Thankfully my kid set me straight on that one. Now I know that the internet is that cute little fox that's on fire.
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It's tubes and you get to it with the AOL icon.
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Well I hope to God they do, because otherwise the internets and all their tubes will be pwned very soon.
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Not all businesses or business models are in the business of producing the best product for the least amount of money.
16 or 32 bit thunk? (Score:1)
That depends, is that a 16 bit thunk or one of the new windows vista 32 bit thunks?
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I have a theory.
Back in the eighties and early nineties Microsoft wasn't much of a software company. They had a (well deserved) reputation for simplistic, unsophisticated, poor quality software, and they certainly never would have survived without the truck loads of free money coming in from their MS-DOS royalties.
Their transformation into a real software company in the early nineties is well documented, and while the quality of their software greatly improved they were still burdened with a reputation
MS gives IPTV for free (Score:1)
It's yet another failed attempt for MS to mean something outside of the Windows/Office monopoly...and they're destroying the economics of the business in the process. Too bad there isn't an anti-dumping law for domestic companies.
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Actually, is there even one deployment in progress or completed? Because, last I looked (18 months or so ago), there wasn't - sure, there were trials going on, but no deployment - because of pretty much the same problems Verizon have encountered.
In fact at that time, most players were dumping MS IPTV in favour of a solution from ?Nokia?
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The nice marketing twist is that Club Internet propose Microsoft TV as an
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I'm particularly intrigued by their choice of a pink tampon as representative of the average clubinternet user...
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Another blow for outsourcing (Score:4, Insightful)
The deal-making pinheads will never figure this out however, their retinas, and the brains behind them, are all fatigued from staring at Powerpoint slides and Blackberry thingies.
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That's funny--good one. That's one of the things I like about
Re:Another blow for outsourcing (Score:4, Funny)
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It's a hat for your ass, where's the confusion?
Really? I always thought it meant "One's ass worn on one's head like a hat." I suppose either definition has its own merits.
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It is when one has their head up their ass, thus wearing their ass as a hat. I guess it is an abbreviation, instead of saying "get your head out of your ass" you just call the person an "asshat" and save your breath to speak to someone of intelligence.
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But wouldn't that then make it an ass-scarf/ass-necklace/ass-collar/ass-helmet/ass-
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Guenther: "Eureka! The hat goes on the head. It's all so logical now!" [space.com]
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This is most CERTAINLY not about the ills of out-sourcing.
How did Verizon get the job done?
Hint: They did it in India/Texas.
Hint2: They didn't use Verizon employees.
This is most certainly a lesson in how Microsoft sucks.
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India, Texas, What is the difference? High tech people from both our countries get low salaries and no respect from the US.
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Well, according to this [houstonarchitecture.info], Texas is hotter and dirtier than India. Does that count?
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Did you read what he wrote???
He explained it very clearly: "If something is THAT important to your business, dammit, get it done yourself!"
Having your business depending on an unfinished piece of software, from a company outside your control, is quite simply, stupid. And Verizon got to find that out the kinda-hard-way... it could have been much worse.
Microsoft sucks, but Verizon was stupid to d
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It is very common for a software project to fail the first time around. Often a combination of uncertain requirements, inexperienced developers and bad management combine to make it nearly impossible to succeed the first time around. As long as Verizon learned th
A Good Day For Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
The license costs that one monopoly is paying the other will, no doubt, lead to a -really- expensive set top box.
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Re:Regulation Regulation Regulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and that's because the bill giving them the "national overlay" monopoly is still wending it's way through the system. http://telephonyonline.com/regulatory/news/congre
First-movers and whatever is left for cable companies in the States are dead as soon as this one passes.
And then there's:
VOIP Regulated away to the telcos/cable co's. Proverbial toll roads on the internet will be the final nail in the coffin.
CellularIs my service better or cheaper than it was 5 years ago? No. Please explain how they would jam -so- many bits down the average phone connection?
Digital Phone ServiceIs this service better or cheaper than my POTS service? As a former subscriber no. Emphatically no.
I agree they are set to see erosion of their customer base, but I would argue that they aren't meeting competitors in the marketplace, they are meeting them in Washington DC, where they have the money to raise barriers to entry. The average quickie-mart economicthink doesn't apply.
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Didn't the pinheads at Verizon read into their coporate history of dealing with this company?
There has been very few if any successful partnerships with Microsoft.
I think the only successful ones are the hardware related where Microsoft is basically a customer.
a business plan? (Score:4, Informative)
royalty per TV. 10's of millions of TV's per year at $10-$20 per TV
is a nice little 'operating system' business." -- Jeff Raikes of Microsoft
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Dish's first PVRs (the DishPlayer 7100 and 7200) ran Windows software (CE, I think). Microsoft got a monthly royalty for every one of them, so Dish refused to waive the PVR fee, even though they were doing so for later PVRs.
The Microsoft PVR software was a piece of crap. It would regularly do the equivalent of a "BSOD", turning the screen to a shade of pink. Dish developed their own PVR and dumped the DishPlayer as fast as they could. They offered me a s
Not IPTV! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not IPTV! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, IPTV is delivery of television over the Internet Protocol. It doesn't necessarily have to involve "The Internet", and could just as easily be run over these fibre lines as over DSL, which is also common.
Re:Not IPTV! (Score:5, Funny)
You're both wrong, IPTV is Iowa Public Television and has been for over 25 years. :) (And even longer under various other names.)
Mwuhahaha, just kidding. That really is what it's called, though (yes, I'm an Iowan), and every time I read about the "new" IPTV I have to force myself to think that it's not what my first reaction tells me.
Well (Score:5, Funny)
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Verizon hitched its wagon so to speak with Microsoft when they started offering DSL in the NorthEastern USA (Free MSN accounts). Its called kickbacks in the form of joint marketing money. No current Linux company has the matching dollars.
Enjoy,
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No current Linux company has the matching dollars.
But as we are seeing with this event, Linux with MythTV would have cost them a whole lot less, and worked!!! And they would have to pay royalties to dysfunctional companies.
Verizon QoS (Score:2)
NEWS JUST IN! (Score:2, Funny)
Verizon... fixing?? oh my... (Score:2, Interesting)
[rant]
A couple of weeks ago, I tried to order DSL from Verizon. Well, twice in fact.
My first order? As it turns out, they somehow lost it after I waited for a week for a response from them. So I had to reorder, via phone...
So the agent told me that DSL _was_ available for my area. Nice! I reordered it.
I waited for two weeks. After two weeks, I wrote a complaint letter (about me waiting for two weeks). Lo and
Redmond Rove-fu (Score:2)
If Verizon had hired some headz and gone MythTV, then we could be impressed.
Don't be fooled by the Rove-fu.
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The tip of the iceberg we see in print is worth accepting as truth.
However, I do trust Redmond to engage in a variety of schemes to strengthen its grip on the market.
Invoking Rove to characterize Redmond's behavior was gratuitous, but I'm thinking that they're maneuvering carefully so that the spectre of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act doesn't come home to roost.
the microsoft way... (Score:1, Interesting)
I had the chance of seeing a test deployment of MS's IPTV "solution" in a testing environment for evaluation and its basically sucks. The system is buggy, server intensive -- one of the engineers who demoed it to me refered to it as a 'Server Per Customer' solution. and in good MS tradition, cool features get dropped from version to version, as they are considered too buggy.
How much bloody OS does a settop box need? (Score:2)
How could the project designers not spec a more appropriate OS? There are literally *dozens* of alternatives that would make more sense.
Mind, it is Verizon. From all I've read, they typically can't find their arse with both hands and a copy of Grey's Anatomy.
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Even a rudimentary digital STB needs features for which a simple OS is probably the easiest solution. For example, a hardware abstraction layer, to allow a single version of the application software to run on the dozen different hardware variants of the STB design that the cable company will have deployed. A multitasking executive because the box will run multiple processes: one for the UI, one that monitors data downloads (eg, data for the program guide), one that receives and stores new versions of the U
They've gotta do something... (Score:1)
Send this one over to Alex Papadimoulis... (Score:2)
... because this is a world-class WTF.
So, what happened? Did Verizon just not tell Microsoft how much memory they were shipping with? Did they give MS the spec, then reduce the memory on the production units? Or maybe they pulled a NASA, and gave MS a memory capacity in HD marketing MB (where 1MB=1000*1000) and MS assumed it was in real-world MB (where 1MB=1024x1024).
Nathan
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I'll have the good grace not to call you infantile names mr. anonymous.
Now if Comcast would only dump Microsoft. (Score:1)
I swear Comcast made a deal with TIVO, please for the love of all that is good switch to TIVO.