This week at NXTcomm 2007, Microsoft Corp. will highlight key results from its Connected Services Sandbox, an initiative to help promote its Telco 2.0 vision of delivering scores of new service offerings that merge traditional telecommunications offerings with Web 2.0 applications to telecommunications service providers. The winner of NXTcomm�s 2007 Eos Excellence of Achievement Award for Best Strategic Support, the Microsoft� Connected Services Sandbox encourages independent software vendors (ISVs), systems integrators (SIs) and developers to collaborate with leading telecommunications providers in the development of managed network mashups. Among recent successes of the Connected Services Sandbox are the creation of more than 120 mashups, the winning designs from the first of several developer competitions, and the addition of several new member companies. At the event, Microsoft and its partners will showcase examples of mashup services.

�The Connected Services Sandbox was created to help telecommunications service providers rapidly develop, test and commercialize a range of innovative new services,� said Michael O�Hara, general manager for the Communications Sector at Microsoft. �By taking an operator�s core network assets and combining them with technologies and applications from the Web 2.0 world, the Sandbox brings operators closer to Telco 2.0. Operators have an opportunity to deliver hundreds, if not thousands, of new revenue-generating services to their customers in this new telecom order, and the Connected Services Sandbox is key in accelerating this process.�