Hopes for Telco triple-play go back some time, observed Phil Corman, Director of Microsoft TV, and as the US West Choice TV & Online service demonstrated, the results have been disappointing -- So why now? For telcos, it is becoming a matter of simple survival, said Corman, and compared to earlier efforts, this time the technology is ready. An important starting point, said Corman, is to consider what IPTV is not. �IPTV is not video streaming over the Internet, watching TV on your PC or merely a best-efforts video service. It has to be based on a proven business model.� Corman believes a key to the new paradigm will be the Electronic Program Guide that allows users to navigate the service. One of the benchmarks for enabling IPTV is the establishment of a viable ecosystem of technology suppliers and content providers. Microsoft�s recently announced strategic partnership with Alcatel is aimed at achieving this goal, explained Corman. Microsoft�s other IPTV partners include Tandberg and Harmonic for video headend. At the client side, Microsoft is looking for mass-market IP set-boxes at price points below $100. Here partners include Thomson, Samsung, Sigma Designs, ST and Intel. Corman said Microsoft currently has about a dozen customers for its IPTV service, including the recent high-profile wins at BellSouth, SBC and Verizon.
What started as a convenience tool for developers writing faster software boilerplate code has evolved into something considerably more consequential: an autonomous layer of software engineering capability that is beginning to restructure how organizations design, build, and govern technology at scale. Gartner's latest market study and analysis of this market makes one thing clear. This is no longer a story about productivity enhancement at the margins. It is a story about competitive realignment at the platform level, with trillion-dollar implications for the vendors who supply these tools and the enterprises deciding which ones to trust with their core development infrastructure. AI Coding Agents Market Development The scale of the market alone signals how far this category has matured. Enterprise AI coding agents are now capturing a growing share of enterprise software engineering spend, with the market estimated at roughly $9.8 billion to $11 billion annualized as of April 2026...