SGI And thirdspace Form Interactive TV Alliance

16-Nov-00

SGI and thirdspace announced an alliance aimed at further stimulating the burgeoning market for interactive television services. As part of the alliance, OVS, thirdspace's industry-leading video server software (formerly known as Oracle Video Server) will continue to be developed on the SGI server platform and IRIXÆ operating system. SGI and thirdspace will work together to enhance the thirdspace video streaming solution. SGI will take the lead with many third-party application and network infrastructure providers to ensure the successful deployment of the offering, and will offer hardware and software support on a worldwide basis. The alliance enables SGI to sell a complete video server solution based on thirdspace OVS software and SGI Origin family servers. This ensures an aggressive enhancement path for those service providers across the Americas, Europe and Asia that currently deploy SGI Media Commerce solutions running the OVS media streaming software. thirdspace will take a fully integrated solution to the world's largest telephone companies, bringing together all necessary technology, content and a dynamic consumer marketing capability to deliver a range of services over existing telephone lines. These include digital interactive television, movies-on-demand and integrated Web access. Until now, such services have been the sole domain of cable companies and satellite operators.""This is a strategic step for us. SGI brings with it the heritage and expertise needed to be successful in this market,"" said Tudor Vers, Chief Technology Officer, thirdspace. ""SGI has an open server architecture that suits the telephone companies' unique scalability and reliability requirements. What's more, it has software and network infrastructure partners in all major markets and is extremely well-positioned to take advantage of our end-to-end iTV platform."" ""thirdspace brings a crucial element to the broadband/DSL community,"" explains Greg Estes, Vice President, Telecommunications and Media Group, SGI. ""Large telcos are often telling us that they are looking to full-service partners when it comes to new service such as interactive television. thirdspace is the partner to get these services deployed and profitable quickly. We have proven that the technology and cost-per-subscriber equation is here today."" The thirdspace video server software runs on the scalable high-performance SGI Origin family servers of which the new modular SGI Origin 3000 series provides the high throughput and seamless scalability required by media service providers. Telcos deploying DSL today are increasingly looking at media services to support hundreds of thousands of subscribers per system. The massive amounts of media throughput and network I/O needed to provide quality service for hundreds of thousands of subscribers can be simply and cost-effectively added due to the revolutionary modular NUMAflex architecture on the SGI Origin 3000 series servers. For more information about thirdspace, visit www.thirdspace.tv. For more information about SGI, visit www.sgi.com.

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