Telecom software services company Tech Mahindra and IT infrastructure major Sun Microsystems announced on Monday a strategic alliance to provide systems and software for internet protocol television services to customers in India and Asia Pacific markets.

The alliance provides for setting up of a technology lab within Tech Mahindra's facilities in Pune where the two partners will jointly develop solutions for the service providers such as telecom operators or cable TV operators to make their services interactive and adaptable to a multitude of entertainment, commercial and eduction applications. 

The alliance comes in the wake of launching the Sun Streaming System - the industry's' first scalable video delivery platform which enables cable and telecommunication service operators to offer new video-based services and personalised video streams.

These capabilities of the Sun platform will be enhanced by Tech Mahindra's capabilities in systems integration as well as content management software development and billing systems. 

The IPTV Lab at Tech Mahindra would feature solutions from an exclusive consortium of solution partners including Digisoft, Envivio, Harmonic, I-Make, Verimatrix and Mototech who are engaged in providing support at the various stages of the IPTV delivery process. 

Announcing the alliance, Sun Microsystems India's Director for strategic alliances K P Unnikrishnan said the two partners can now pitch for business from customers with end to end IPTV solutions based on carrier grade Sun systems featuring the recently introcuded streaming platform.

"This is in fact the first such alliance which seeks to integrate the capabilities of six other consortium partners to offer an integrated solution to service providers. This alliance will help bring the Sun Streaming Syatem's market changing economics to customers in the video services industry in India," he added.

Tech Mahindra's vice president for next generation technologies Shankar Allimatti said the company is already working with a number of incumbent and emerging service providers in the IPTV and Triple Play. The customers are from United States, Europe and Aisa, he explained. 

Tech Mahindra will bring to the table its IPTV capabilities across several areas that include consulting services, system integration capabilities, network technology areas in next generation elements and network and application performance optimisation, Allimatti said.

According to him the addressible market for the solution service IPTV providers is about half a billion dollars. With the entry of more and more players into the space, the market may however multiply in the coming years, he indicated.