NBCU, Microsoft Pact on '10 Olympics

NEW YORK NBC Universal will partner with Microsoft to support its online delivery of the Winter Olympics in 2010.

As it did during NBC's much-ballyhooed Web coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics, Microsoft will provide both the video-streaming technology, as well as prominent distribution on its MSN portal. From Feb. 12-28 next year, fans will be able to access live and on-demand footage from various events via NBCOlympics.com on MSN.

A similar arrangement last year resulted in a traffic windfall for NBC, which streamed over 2,000 hours of live events during the Beijing Games. NBC executives claim that online coverage reached over 52 million unique users -- territory rarely, if ever, seen in online video.

Besides tapping into MSN's high reach as a promotional platform, NBC's online coverage of the Vancouver Games will also employ Microsoft's Silverlight technology, which promises to deliver high-definition quality video within a standard Web browser. Silverlight was first widely used to deliver online video for the Beijing Games.