REDMOND, Washington, July 9 /PRNewswire/ --

- The service will provide hotel guests with access to a highly 
customized in-room TV experience including interactive applications.

Viapass (http://www.viapass.com/Index.aspx), the French network services
and telecoms operator, has selected Microsoft Mediaroom 
(http://www.microsoft.com/mediaroom/) with virtualization as the software
platform to deliver a breakthrough Internet Protocol television (IPTV)
service to its business customers worldwide through its division Viapass TV.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

The Viapass TV service enables hotels and Viapass's other business
customers, such as major hospitals and luxury residences, to take advantage
of the Mediaroom platform to deliver a customized TV service, including live
TV, high-definition TV, video on demand and rich interactive TV applications,
over a private Internet Protocol network.

"Hotel operators are excited by the possibilities offered by
next-generation IPTV," said Eric Legros, sales and marketing manager for
Viapass. "They have already started to talk about our Microsoft
Mediaroom-based solution as the most advanced hospitality juke box on the
market. With Mediaroom, we can bring them a cost-effective platform that
offers guests a highly personalized TV service with an extensive lineup of
live and on-demand high-definition content as well as innovative information
and service applications. Hotel guests are accustomed to a sophisticated TV
viewing experience at home, and hotel operators, especially in the luxury
sector, need to ensure that the TV experience they offer matches or even
surpasses this, helping them to differentiate from their competitors, drive
services revenue and attract and retain clientele."

In addition to enabling the delivery of a great lineup of digital TV
channels and an extensive video on demand library, the Mediaroom platform
provides an applications platform for Viapass and its customers to add
innovative TV applications tailored to meet the needs of their guests.
Possibilities include up-to-the minute travel information and financial and
personalized news applications.

As the official Internet and network services provider for all events
hosted by Cannes Palais des Festivals et des Congres, Viapass is also able to
distribute special event content, or even specific TV channels such as TV
Festival (which broadcasts live during the Cannes Film Festival), via the
Mediaroom platform for hotel guests to watch in their rooms.

Viapass initially targeted the French Riviera market, where the company
provides high-profile Internet and network services for many of the large
hotels. Viapass is already seeing significant interest from international
chains looking to use this Mediaroom-powered service to extend their TV
services to hotels across Europe and overseas. Viapass also has been
discussing this solution with key organizations in the healthcare industry,
and a number of large hospitals are already very interested in this
Mediaroom-powered solution.

Viapass TV is expected to be the first customer in Europe to launch a
service using Mediaroom with virtualization 
(http://www.microsoft.com/Mediaroom/PR/VirtualizationPR.aspx), in the last
quarter of 2009. The use of Mediaroom with virtualization enables Viapass TV
to deploy a full-featured IPTV service with greatly reduced hardware
requirements at a customer site in a matter of weeks. In addition to network
engineering and integration, Viapass TV will handle all content acquisition
and management, while partnering with Cisco Systems Inc. for networking
equipment, and with several providers for set-top boxes.

"Virtualization has enabled Microsoft to extend the Mediaroom footprint
to new markets," said Colin Morrison, EMEA sales director for the TV, Video
and Music Business at Microsoft Corp. "We're delighted that Viapass TV has
chosen to use our technology to deliver a groundbreaking IPTV service for the
hospitality industry. Mediaroom enables Viapass TV customers to offer their
guests the very best in connected entertainment."

About Microsoft Mediaroom

The award-winning Microsoft Mediaroom Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)
and multimedia software platform is the most widely deployed IPTV platform in
the world. Mediaroom is driving the future of television by enabling
broadband service providers to deliver new connected TV and entertainment
experiences to consumers worldwide. It provides new ways for consumers to
experience TV as part of their connected, digital lifestyle, while also
creating new business opportunities for broadband service providers, hardware
manufacturers, content creators, advertisers and application developers. Over
20 of the world's leading service providers across four continents have
selected the Mediaroom platform to drive their digital TV services. More
information on Mediaroom and the opportunity to deliver the best in TV plus
all your media in one place is available at
http://www.microsoft.com/Mediaroom.

About Viapass TV

Viapass TV is a Division of Viapass SAS, a French operator for Network
engineering and Internet Access. The company and most of Viapass staff have
been supplying Internet and network service and managing small, medium and
large events on the French Riviera and Barcelona for more than 10 years.
Viapass is the Official Internet and Network Services Provider for all events
hosted by Cannes Palais des Festivals et des Congres and is also the official
supplier for numerous large events in Europe. Viapass TV benefits from
Viapass SAS experience in best-in-class events services. The Viapass TV
Website is www.viapass.tv.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize
their full potential.