Microsoft and Reliance in Partnership

India’s Reliance Communications Ltd is set to pay Microsoft Corp. about $500 million in license fees to use its technologies for Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV services, which delivers high-quality video over phone lines to home television sets. Reliance Communications is set to launch the service in March next year.

India has probably 100 million households with a television, and probably good ones. The television numbers is set to rise between 20-25 percent annually, thanks to the rapid economic expansion in recent years. There is a huge demand for personalized entertainment and Microsoft is lending its technologies to Reliance to go into the IPTV market.

Microsoft has had a presence in India since 1990 while Reliance Communications is among the leaders in India’s fast-expanding mobile phone business where its network reaches 13,000 towns and 500,000 villages in the country.

Via Businessweek.com