Microsoft gets to crash your cable tv now

[MSgt213]

Comcast said on Monday that it will make Microsoft set-top box software available to more than half a million customers in the Seattle area.

The announcement follows up on a pledge earlier this year by the two companies to broadly deploy the software maker's Microsoft TV Foundation Edition software. Comcast has taken a license to use Microsoft's software in 5 million homes.

"Today marks an important milestone in the overall partnership between Microsoft and Comcast," said Moshe Lichtman, a corporate vice president in the Microsoft TV unit. "It's also the first large-scale deployment of our software in the U.S. market."

Analysts have said the Comcast effort could be critical to Microsoft's future in the U.S. cable market. Lichtman agreed that the Comcast effort will be important and that others will be watching.

Microsoft has been pursuing TV dreams for years, at least since its 1997 purchase of WebTV. But the company has largely scaled back its ambitions of offering PC-like services such as e-mail and Web surfing via the television. The Microsoft TV unit now focuses primarily on delivering video on demand and other television services that cable operators want to bring to their mainstream subscribers.

http://news.com.com/Comcast+taps+Microsoft+for+Seattle+set-tops/2100-1046_3-5443430.html?tag=nefd.lede

[jdots]

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