The other day I posted about Virgin Media dropping Cisco as their TiVo HW supplier in exchange for Samsung. Well, I was only half right. Virgin Media is adding Samsung as a TiVo hardware supplier, starting later this year. However, they are not dropping Cisco.
The deal with Samsung is additive, they’re a second source for Virgin as they ramp up their TiVo deployments and acquire more boxes. As Everth Flores, Cisco’s Director & GM, Service Provider Video EMEA, blogged:
The facts: Per a long-standing agreement, we manufacture and supply TiVo-based digital set-top boxes to Virgin, as well as to Ono in Spain. To date, we’ve been the sole supplier of those devices — with the certain understanding that Virgin, like any sensibly minded operator, would at some point introduce a second source.
Earlier this week, and echoing an arrangement publicly disclosed earlier this year, that second source supplier was named as Samsung Electronics, which announced an apparent commitment for TiVo-based digital set-tops.
No one was ejected, no one was axed, no contracts expired. As un-sexy as it may sound, this was quite simply a second source supply decision, wholly anticipated by everyone involved.
He also added a short and sweet message to Cisco’s competition:“Bring it.”
I just wanted to set the record straight.
Via Vision2Mobile.
