Today at the QuickTime Live! conference, Apple, Ericsson, and Sun Microsystems announced a relationship that they say will enable network operators to deliver standardized multimedia content to a variety of wireless devices including mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Their standards-based solution is an end-to-end platform that includes: QuickTime for content creation and encoding, Sun’s scalable software and systems for content distribution, and Ericsson’s ability to provide mobile operators with a full infrastructure and services solution.
Apple, Ericsson and Sun believe open standards are critical to bringing revolutionary technology to new markets and to delivering the future of mobile data services, according to Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing. All three companies are leaders in their industries in the development and use of open standards, he said.
Ericsson is a founding member of the 3GPP, and Apple and Sun are co-founders of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA). Both the 3GPP and ISMA are organizations dedicated to ensuring interoperable, standards-based technologies and products in the market. And, of course, QuickTime has been chosen by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as the file format for MPEG-4.
“Working with Ericsson and Sun is the perfect example of how using open standards can bring powerful technology to consumers and open new markets for businesses,” Schiller said. “We’re excited that Ericsson chose QuickTime for the Content Delivery Solution. QuickTime is widely used by content developers, and the Mac is the platform of choice for the creative community.”
The Content Delivery Solution will open up new revenue streams for operators by providing users with high quality multimedia services, such as movie clips and instant news on demand, according to Torbjörn Nilsson, senior VP, Ericsson Marketing and Strategic Business Development. The partnership between the three companies “ensures availability of multimedia content, thus bridging the media industry with the mobile community,” he added.
“The rapidly expanding content delivery market requires industrial-strength, readily scaling open systems which are the heart of Sun’s business,” said Ann Wettersten, VP president of Sun’s Wireless and Content Delivery Networks Group. “We’re pleased to join Apple and Ericsson in enabling the delivery of rich media services that enable the wireless lifestyle.”
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