M&A in the internet TV sector continues apace with Cisco continuing its recent shopping spree by adding encoding company Inlet to its Videoscape portfolio.
Cisco is beginning to become a serious competitor to a range of players in the market, not least companies such as Alcatel Lucent which lack many of the building blocks that have been brought together under the Videoscape banner. But the initiative is also a threat to platform providers such as Brightcove who, in a market largely made up of minnows, would dearly love to have MNOs and MNVOs (mobile operators) as clients.
In the UK, especially, hardly any MNOs have committed to a television strategy, but it would still be surprising to see them purchase from Cisco rather than more established IPTV and middleware providers. Perhaps mobile is now the key. Traditional IPTV providers are very week at 'tv everywhere' provision and the mobile piece is far from easy to address.