Ericsson has arranged to buy Microsoft's Mediaroom video distribution business, in a bid to shore up its position in the IPTV solutions market.
As per the deal, Ericsson will acquire the Mediaroom IPTV platform, its base of mostly telco customers and its employees.
Terms of the acquisition have not yet been disclosed.
Ericsson said the acquisition will make the vendor the top provider of IPTV solutions, with a market share of around 25%.
Existing customers of Mediaroom include major names such as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica. Its customers together provide services for around 22 million set top boxes in 11 million households worldwide.
In a blog post, Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi said the company is selling off Mediaroom in order to be able to focus its IPTV efforts entirely on its Xbox platform.
He said the company will be pursuing partnerships with content creators, studios, labels, networks, content aggregators, operators and distributors to help augment the multimedia offerings on the platform.
“We believe the future of home entertainment is one where TV becomes more simple, tailored and intelligent,” he said. “We believe the best is yet to come for this industry.”