IPTV Positioning Itself to Lap Other iTV Forms?

French electronic vendor Thomson has announced an agreement to acquire the Thales Broadcast & Multimedia (TBM) business unit, which provides IPTV services (TV services over Internet Protocol), video-on-demand, mobile TV, and designs digital TV and radio broadcasting systems and equipment, according to a press release widely ciculated on the web.

Remember RCA or RCA Victor? Well, they went French in 1988 after being acquired by General Electric. About year-and-a-half later, GE sold its RCA and GE consumer electronics business to France's Thomson where the RCA name remains today.

It's interesting to see what may be shaping up here. IPTV service can appear very quickly because the infrastructure is in place and in constant improvement: it's called broadband. IPTV by definition can also bring interactive television services to the U.S. market (the provincial focus of this blog). So, if IPTV laps iTV (which is looking likely), it means that IPTV will then allow iTV services to be rolled out rapidly. Be sure to quote me: interactive television is inevitable. War in the Middle East (non-fiction, unfortunately) is one of the only possible events that can stop it. So, if you're like me, climb on board the train rather being run over by it.

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