Underscoring its commitment to open standards in emerging technologies and media platforms Thomson, has become a full member of the Open IPTV Forum.

The aim of the Forum is to promote IPTV by making it easy for consumers to experience and enjoy it, ensuring interactivity between all devices, networks and technologies. Leveraging its expertise in end-to-end IPTV solutions including network platforms and home devices, Thomson joins forces with other telecom industry leaders in defining standards for delivering new advanced multimedia services and shaping the future of the broadband market.

The Open IPTV Forum is a pan-industry initiative, formed in 2007 by the world's largest operators and equipment vendors, to produce end to end specifications for IPTV, enabling a "plug and play" experience for users, without concerns about the underlying technologies. This includes interoperability of devices within the home environment and with third party applications to enable a wide range of interactive services for the user. To achieve this ease of use in a complex application such as IPTV is challenging, and depends on comprehensive, well specified and open standards.

Thomson is committed to the development and propagation of open standards in all its activities, and currently has a participating role in more than 60 international standards development organizations including the ETSI's TISPAN for IPTV standardization in IMS, the DVB Project and the HD Forum. Large, scaleable IPTV deployments have become a reality, and compliance with internationally recognized open standards has been a key success factor for Thomson.

Thomson is unique in being able to provide a complete end-to-end solution for IPTV and Triple Play, from head ends to consumer premises equipment. Thomson's SmartVision is, according to analysts MRG Inc, the market leader in IPTV video service platforms and video servers. Thomson is positioned as an industry expert with the most comprehensive and advanced package of triple-play solutions.