We are definitely at an interesting point in the UK Telco market.

Orange are moving towards Quad play with the Wanadoo tie up,
Carphone warehouse is on the path to free broadband
Vodaphone has been rumoured to be buying Tiscali http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5-2149240.html
BSkyB has already bought Easynet to get the broadband angle.
BSkyB and BT are both trying to buy AOL UK.
02 are buying small fast broadband firm BE
NTL buy Virgin Mobile
NTL and Telewest have merged
CW and Energis have merged

And this is just a few!

As you can see there has been a lot of purchasing of late as the market realises they need to get out of the older business models such as selling voice minutes .

Its all about driving up sell and additional services. Mobile carriers are looking to drive data usuage across their networks with data services.

I have to say that Microsoft is in a great position on this. On one side there is the live story but there is also all the applications that can currently be hosted such as hosted exchange via our partners, and the major support of Ray Ozzie in getting more of our products to be delivered as a service.

Very exciting times ahead!

Just think about the possibilities of VOIP, IM, MSTV, Email, file storage, business applications, location services, search etc etc. bundle these together with partner and ISV applications and services and you can get some very rich and compelling scenarios!