Stefan Mileschin

Verizon has announced it is buying the fashion bag maker Intel's failed television project.

Intel made a big thing of its plan to launch a set-top box, with its partner Verizon. Then it said it was going to give up and wanted to flog the whole lot off for $500 million.

Verizon will buy the assets of Intel Media, a division set up to develop "over the top" TV services.

It is not clear how much Verizon has paid but it is getting a large amount of intellectual property related to Intel's project. Around 350 people have been developing the set-top box, and Verizon will offer jobs to all of them. They will continue to be based in Santa Clara, where Intel has its headquarters.

Intel claimed that its plans were scuppered by difficulty obtaining the content partnerships necessary for a set-top box. It's hoped that Verizon, which already offers more traditional TV services, will be able to make internet TV work.

Verizon will integrate Intel's internet TV tech with its existing video services to "further differentiate the product from traditional cable TV offerings and to reduce ongoing deployment costs." It also expects the purchase to help bring cross-screen watching to LTE devices.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich says that what Intel Media was developing was "truly innovative," but it's better off in Verizon's hands. He adds that the company will "further align" its focus and resources around a "broad computing product portfolio in segments ranging from the 'Internet of Things' to data centres."

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