An alliance Microsoft-France Télécom

Steve Balmer especially made the trip to Paris to sign a partnership with France Télécom. Their goal is to offer a convergence of telephone, cell phones and Web devices.
Steve Jobs will be glad to learn that FT project name is... NEXT.
After they were late for VoIP, FT probably wishes to become an early investor on the market of telephone by Internet, that softwares such as Skype use.