Microsoft announced that U.K. telecommunications giant BT will use its Microsoft TV IPTV software to deliver TV over broadband to its subscribers. BT will trial Microsoft's IPTV software in early 2006, with plans to launch a commercial service next summer for its 20 million consumer and business customers. The announcement comes a week after Australia's largest telecommunications provider, Telstra, decided not to advance its lab trials with Microsoft IPTV software into its customers' homes. Microsoft is also testing its IPTV software in the U.S. with providers including SBC, which recently signed a ten-year, $400 million deal to use the software. The IPTV service will include customizable channel lineups, video-on-demand, digital video recording, interactive program guides, event notifications and content protection features. Microsoft will also resell the IPTV platform through Alcatel.
The growing need for real-time, localized artificial intelligence (AI) processing power drives demand for Generative AI (GenAI) solutions on public cloud edge computing platforms. Worldwide spending on edge computing is forecast to reach $232 billion in 2024 -- that's an increase of 15.4 percent over 2023, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Combined enterprise and service provider spending across hardware, software, professional services, and provisioned services for edge solutions will sustain strong growth through 2027 when spending is forecast to reach nearly $350 billion. Edge Computing Market Development IDC defines edge as the information and communications technology (ICT) related actions performed outside of the centralized data center, where edge computing is the intermediary between the connected endpoints and the core enterprise IT environment. Characteristically, edge computing is distributed, software-defined, and flexible. T