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Verizon Steps in to Fix Microsoft's IPTV

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-here's-your-problem dept.

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.'"

25 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. How much memory does it take to by ClaraBow · · Score: 2, Funny

    display the blue screen of death? It's only a joke :)

    1. Re:How much memory does it take to by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny
      How much memory does it take to display the blue screen of death?
      Well, the blue screen of death is in text mode 80x25, I think. That means two bytes for each character (ASCII code + color). That totals up to 80x25x2 bytes = 4000 bytes.

      It's only a joke :)
      I knew I should've read your post to the end before replying.
  2. Shocked, I say! by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A Microsoft Product?

    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.

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
    1. Re:Shocked, I say! by sm62704 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What I don't understand is why all the major TV players are signing on with Microsoft.

      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".

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    2. Re:Shocked, I say! by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

      A perfect example is the number of people that call Internet Explorer "the internet".

      Thankfully my kid set me straight on that one. Now I know that the internet is that cute little fox that's on fire.

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    3. Re:Shocked, I say! by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Informative

      But in cable boxes, Microsoft's market share is near zero. The hardware is all made by Cisco/Scienfic Atlanta and Motorola/General Instrument, and I'd guess that they also have their own software stacks.

    4. Re:Shocked, I say! by astrosmash · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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 for unsophisticated, poor quality software (some of it deserved, some not). As a result, I think Microsoft engineers tend to over-compensate for this reputation by dramatically over-designing and over-engineering most of their modern software. But what else can you do if you must still support Win9x running on an MS-DOS/FAT file system?

      It's no surprise to me that their software would overshoot the hardware requirements. Simple, elegant solutions are just not in cards for Microsoft engineers.

      --
      ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
  3. Another blow for outsourcing by glomph · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm as virulent a Microsoft-hater as you'll find on Slashdot, but the lesson here is not that they suck (which they do, badly). It's a lesson about company A (Verizon in this case) subbing out an important business segment to company B (Microsoft, the promise-anything, and ship whatever company). If something is THAT important to your business, dammit, get it done yourself! 9 out of 10 times something goes to shit, and you either had smart lawyers (as Verizon clearly did) that at least gives you -some- chance of inconveniently, expensively bailing the project out.

    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.

    1. Re:Another blow for outsourcing by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Did you read the article????

      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.

      --
      WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
    2. Re:Another blow for outsourcing by cyber-vandal · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's a hat for your ass, where's the confusion?

    3. Re:Another blow for outsourcing by arodland · · Score: 2, Funny

      Now apply your amazing linguistic and analytical skills to "no-talent assclown" plz

  4. A Good Day For Microsoft by mpapet · · Score: 3, Informative

    They have Verizon backed so far into a corner that it appears verizon can't walk away. MS is laughing all the way to the bank on this one.

    The license costs that one monopoly is paying the other will, no doubt, lead to a -really- expensive set top box.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
    1. Re:A Good Day For Microsoft by redphive · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Having worked in the cable television industry for the past 15 or so years, I am going to have to highlight the fact that IPTV is far from a monopoly. Moreover, Verizon could hardly be called a monopoly, with emerging technologies such as VoIP, Cellular and Cable based Digital Phone service (yes it is just VoIP but is typically handled across a fully managed network) as well as other ISP options, they are set to face customer erosion in the near future.

    2. Re:A Good Day For Microsoft by Ucklak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wonder if this could be one of those Embrace - Extend - Extinguish type of deals where Verizon, with all the assets Microsoft wants, ends up having to raise money by selling assets or getting bought out or sold.

      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.

      --
      if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
  5. a business plan? by geoff+lane · · Score: 3, Informative

    "The real goal is to figure out a way to get an 'operating system'
    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

  6. Not IPTV! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just for the record, FIOS TV is not IPTV. IPTV is delivery of television over the internet. Verizon's FIOS delivers TV over fiber, than to coax--exactly as cable systems do. The difference is that the termination of the fiber in FIOS is at the side of the house, while in a traditional cable environment, the fiber is terminated further upstream (at a central office of sorts).

    1. Re:Not IPTV! by chrisbtoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      IPTV is delivery of television over the internet.


      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.
      --
      Registering accounts later than some other chrisb since 1997
    2. Re:Not IPTV! by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      R.Mo
  7. Well by DAldredge · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess that the Microsoft apps were not up to the level of suck that Verizon likes so they had to add the suck themselves.

  8. Re:If it's a dig at microsoft, no matter how small by just_another_sean · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's just so darn easy to do though. Microsoft practically writes the jokes themselves.

    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.

    --
    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  9. NEWS JUST IN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Software development project just like every other software development project! Microsoft beleived to be involed! Slashdot closes in!

  10. Re:Regulation Regulation Regulations! by mpapet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IPTV is far from a monopoly
    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/congres s_cable_franchise_030906/
    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.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  11. That's a silly question by Aeamarth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Everybody knows 640k should be enough!!

  12. Verizon... fixing?? oh my... by towsonu2003 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Verizon is _fixing_ something? That is disturbing news, even if they are fixing Microsoft...

    [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 behold, I got a phone call next day, from a Verizon machine, telling that my DSL order was cancelled because DSL was not available in my area.

    I lived in a so-called 3rd world country for a few months. It took them 2 days to take my DSL order and activate my phone line for DSL...

    [/rant]

    The idea here? They are fixing Microsoft while their whole system is [beep]. Poor[*] Microsoft... O_o

    [*] Not even a sarcastic comment...

  13. Not really; Verizon is failing by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Verizon paid MS to do a job. Because MS does the same oh/same oh, Verizon found the software unusable. So rather than suing MS and getting back their money for a failed job, they are spending loads of money to have a crap system that can run better. In addition, I would guess that the Verizon ppl will turn over the code to MS. IOW, the Verizon managers are so bad, that they do not want to admit that what they bought, failed.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.