I have had the opportunity to see the latest versions of Microsoft's IPTV software. Overall, I was very favorably impressed. When I sign up for AT&T's U-Verse service, I hope that some of those features will be offered; especially the 'bread-crumb' search functionality.

Microsoft TV IPTV Edition is now being deployed commercially by five tier-1 telcos around the world: AT&T, BT, T-Online France, T-Online Germany and Swisscom in Switzerland. Ten other telcos are either planning deployments of the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software or are in deep trials.

Yesterday, BT announced the commercial launch of BT Vision, its new television and entertainment service. BT Vision also uses the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition software platform, combining it with the philips set-top box, which provide 80 hours of digital-video-recording capability, two tuners, a smart-card reader and support for HDTV.

As you might expect, the BT Vision service is targeted to broadband customers across the UK. BT Vision provides 40 linear channels and video-on-demand content over a broadband IP connection. The company added that it aims to have 2 to 3 million BT Vision customers "in the medium term" (whatever that is).

The channel lineup includes several British Broadcasting Corp. channels, Sky News, Disney's ABC1, QVC and UKTV History.

BT is taking on NTL, the largest cable operator in the United Kingdom, with about 3.3 million video customers. NTL earlier this year bought No. 2 U.K cable operator Telewest Global, and it is currently attempting to buy broadcaster ITV with a bid worth $8.9 billion.