This week Ericsson, in the run up to IBC, signed a partnership deal with Kudelski’s NexGuard to launch Network ID, a forensic watermarking product for the broadcast industry. It seems a small enough announcement, but for a business which is trying to not spend any money, this is about letting someone else own a key technology, because it is cheaper. In the past Ericsson would have either acquired a business or built a forensic watermarking system itself. But by signing a deal with NexGuard, a sister company to Nagra, Ericsson is almost committing its entire Media division to go down the same route. You don’t want to buy a box which downloads contribution feeds and converts them from say MPEG2…