Richard Davies wrote: The UK has a good crop of technology pioneers in cloud computing - for example ElasticHosts, FlexiScale, Flexiant, OnApp - and also some strong government initiatives such as G-Cloud.
We will have to see whether this kind of technical leadership converts into swift mass-market adoption or not.
Bluestreak
Technology Inc., the leader in open Flash® platforms for wireless
and wired devices, today announced that French network operator, Bouygues
Telecom, selected the company’s MachBlue™
platform to power the next-generation interface for Bouygues
Telecom’s popular Bbox IPTV. The new IPTV interface, which launched
beginning of June, gives consumers a visually rich and intuitive portal
and entertainment programming guide created using Flash® technology.
Future releases of the Bbox interface will include a Media Center as
well as a Widget Framework for accessing news, sports, weather, traffic,
entertainment gossip, stocks, and horoscopes using the TV.
“The newest release of our Bbox IPTV interface makes it easier than ever
before for our customers to access rich content and personalize their
IPTV viewing experience,” said Yann Loussouarn, Services Marketing
Director, Bouygues Telecom. “Bluestreak Technology’s proven platform and
extensive experience delivering Flash-based solutions to top tier
network operators worldwide directly contributed to the success of this
recent launch. Together we are delivering the future of IPTV interfaces
to the market today.”
Bouygues Telecom will deploy the complete Bbox TV interface in three
stages:
Home Portal and EPG – Currently available, the new Bbox TV home
portal offers a more intuitive and fluid portal than previous Bbox
versions with greater customization options available for the
consumer. It is accompanied by an interactive entertainment
programming guide (EPG) which allows consumers to search for programs
by scrolling through a mosaic of tiles that display each channel’s
programming.
Widget Framework – Deploying at the end of summer, the upcoming
widget framework will offer consumers the ability to access seven
widgets that deliver popular Internet content to the consumer directly
on their television. This content will include information such as
news headlines, sports scores, weather forecasts, traffic reports,
entertainment gossip, stocks, and horoscopes. More widgets will be
added in the future.
Media Center – Deploying in the fall, the new Media Center
function will allow consumers to view their favorite photos, videos
and music using their Bbox TV. Consumers will be able to insert a USB
or external hard drive to upload their multimedia content.
The entire solution is based on Bluestreak Technology’s Flash®-powered
MachBlue Platform. By leveraging MachBlue, Bouygues Telecom was able to
deploy a visually rich and intuitive IPTV interface across all
environments, deployed for all customers through software upgrades.
MachBlue also enables Bouygues Telecom to tap into the over two million
Adobe® Flash developers in the market today to make new widgets rapidly
available to consumers in the future.
“With the launch of this new, Flash®-powered IPTV interface, Bouygues
Telecom is setting themselves apart in the IPTV market,” said Dominique
Jodoin, Bluestreak Technology CEO and President. “The slick user
experience and rich widget content coupled with Bouygues’ direct
marketing will prove successful. We are pleased to have met Bouygues
Telecom’s renowned high expectations in terms of user experience and
quality of service to deliver a solution in a very competitive and
mature market.”
BOUYGUES TELECOM MOBILE, FIXED, TV AND INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES.
Created in 1994, Bouygues Telecom has 10,394,000 mobile customers,
428,000 fixed-line customers and 9,000 employees. Bouygues Telecom is
committed to being “the preferred brand of personal communication
services” for both mobile and fixed phone service, as well as TV and
Internet, thanks to a continuous focus on greater freedom and exemplary
customer service.
After pioneering the mobile talk-plan concept in France in 1996,
Bouygues Telecom introduced groundbreaking unlimited call plans:
Millennium (1999) and neo (2006). Bouygues Telecom acquired its own
fixed network in 2008 and became an Internet Service Provider (ISP),
launching the Bbox broadband router.
In 2009, Bouygues Telecom invented the “all-in-one” solution with ideo
the first quadruple play offer in the market—mobile and fixed voice plus
TV and Internet.
In 2010 Bouygues Telecom launched ideo 24/24, a quadruple play offer
including the first totally unlimited mobile call-plan. This year, the
operator will also introduce a very-high-speed offer.
Bouygues Telecom's mobile network covers over 98% of the population. Its
3G+ network provides mobile Internet access for 81% of the population.
Bouygues Telecom is the only operator to be awarded “NF Service Centre
de Relation Client” certification from French standards agency AFAQ
AFNOR for all its consumer activities (mobile and fixed). The company
has also been ranked No. 1 in Customer Relations in the mobile phone
sector for the third year running (BearingPoint-TNS Sofres Customer
Relations Quality League Table). Customer relation centers, a
distribution network of 600 Bouygues Telecom Club stores, and a website
available 24/7 combine to ensure optimum customer service.
About Bluestreak Technology
Bluestreak Technology is the open Flash® platform leader for companies
that want to create custom Adobe® Flash-based user interfaces,
applications, and web services across a wide variety of wireless and
wired devices. The company’s award-winning MachBlue™ platform extends
the rich graphics that Flash is known for on the Web with the
customization options necessary to overcome the unique constraints of
set-top boxes, mobile phones, digital televisions, and other consumer
electronic devices. Bluestreak Technology’s software is used daily by
millions of consumers worldwide, delivering interactive and engaging
user experiences that have been shown to improve service adoption rates
by 75%, increase content usage by over 50%, and deliver customer
satisfaction rates as high as 98%. Privately held and headquartered in
Montreal, Canada, Bluestreak Technology powers the Flash-based user
interfaces and applications for many of today’s leading television and
mobile companies, including France Telecom, Time Warner Cable, DivX,
Videotron, Mitsubishi, Qualcomm, and Telecom Italia France. Additional
information is available at +1 (514) 448-7662, info@bluestreaktech.com,
and http://www.bluestreaktech.com.
MachBlue™ is a registered trademark of Bluestreak Technology. All Rights
Reserved.
Flash® is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems, Inc. in the United
States and other countries.
Other product or service marks mentioned herein are the trademarks of
their respective owners.