Microsoft Corp has rallied eight big names worldwide in its campaign to win support for its Tiger interactive television server software. Hewlett-Packard Co is planning to make television set-top boxes compatible with the software. Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp’s NTT Data Communications Systems Corp says it will customise and sell Microsoft’s Tiger video on demand technology, and hopes to sell the result to cable television stations. Australian government-owned telecommunications carrier Telstra Corp announced that it is to test Microsoft’s new Broadband Network Operating System, as have the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom, Rogers Communications Inc of Canada, SBC Communications Inc and US West Inc. Telstra staff will undergo technical training in the operating system and participate in system tests in the US – where Nippon Telegraph has already signed up for similar observer status. Telstra laboratories will also carry out a laboratory trial with customer terminals to evaluate the technical capabilities of the system – it is still looking for partners to form a proposed pay television venture. Others signing up include Alcatel NV’s Alcatel SEL AG in Germany, Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA and Anderson Consulting. Tiger uses iAPX-86-based multiprocessors as servers: a server can be continously scalable from one CPU to thousands as the demand for video rises.
