Pace Wins BT Order

Pace has won a significant order for set-top boxes from BT for its BT Vision service. Pace recently acquired the IPTV set-top box business from Philips, which has supplied set-top boxes for BT Vision since it started in December 2006. BT also signed a contract for IPTV set-top boxes with Motorola in January 2008.

This is an important piece of business for Pace and a major reason why it acquired the Philips IPTV set-top box business. It is quite natural that BT would bring Motorola in as a second vendor for a service as large as BT Vision is likely to become.

Pace to Acquire Phillips Set-top Box Business

Pace has agreed to acquire Philips' set-top box business for 95 million euros. Philps' set-top box business is based in France and has 335 employees. Pace expects that the combined company will produce about 8.5 million set-top boxes a year and have revenues of more than $1.0 billion in revenue.

With this acquisition, Pace will add BT and Telefonica of Spain as IPTV set-top box customers.

Pace has focused primarily on the cable and satellite set-top box market. Philips will acquire to plum IPTV accounts with the acquisition in BT and Telefonica.