Microsoft is rolling up the European markets for IPTV. After winning the Deutsche Telekom account they have France's Club Internet, which belongs to DT, on board as the first IPTV service provider in Europe to launch video on demand using the Microsoft platform. According to Heise Online the service will allow users to see two HDTV programs simultaneously and record up to 50hours. To make things - nearly - complete for Microsoft, they also announced that BT will be using their software later this year.

This round the clock IPTV channel based on Macromedia Flash technology, the first of its kind in Europe, has been set up by the German multimedia agency Exozet. Exozet has offices in Berlin, Potsdam, Vienna and Zagreb.

The company also offers a software for video streaming content management called exozet.cms. In the free Bunch.TV video clips can be voted on and people can chat about it. Also an electronic programming guide (EPG) can be accessed. Some videos are available on demand so people can setup their own TV show. Here Bunch.TV works with the partner/customer Desperados who puts codes for video clips onto bottle labels. Those can then also be activated via premium SMS. Each show -series of video clips- comes with its own look and feel (skins) which gives a creative viewing experience.

Next step on their roadmap is to offer mobile TV content as well as content for the iPod community. Interfaces to digital signage systems are already realized. We think this is a great idea and great achievement. The company seems ready to export this technology to the English-speaking world as well. They are already registered in the UK, probably because of tax reasons.