Liberty Global is outsourcing the development and operation of its Horizon entertainment and connectivity platform to existing partner Infosys in a five-year, €1.5bn deal that will see 400 Liberty Global employees join the Indian IT services giant.
Horizon is a critical part of Liberty Global’s service delivery strategy: It is the platform via which the network operator’s 10 million TV/video services customers in Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK and Slovakia, access real-time TV service delivery, on-demand/catch-up services, third party applications (Netflix et al.), games, music and more via a “super aggregation” interface.
Since 2020, the Horizon platform has been developed and run by the service provider with support from Infosys, which has helped Liberty Global transition Horizon to a cloud-based platform based on the IT services firm’s Cobalt cloud transformation processes and tools, and now the partnership is being expanded significantly.
The Bengaluru, India-based company will, once the deal is approved by regulators and agreed with works councils, take over the development and operation of Horizon and enhance the platform with the Infosys Topaz generative AI (GenAI) system.
Under the terms of the new deal, Liberty Global is licensing its Horizon platform to Infosys, which can then offer to deploy and run the system for service providers outside the Liberty Global group. “This will potentially enable millions of new customers, around the world, to experience next-generation digital entertainment and connectivity services through Horizon for the first time,” and provide both Infosys and Liberty Global with potential new revenue opportunities. Liberty Global, though, will “continue to control product roadmaps and retain all intellectual property for the Horizon entertainment and connectivity platforms,” so it’s not handing everything over to Infosys.