A new desktop application aiming to knit email, instant messaging, video conferencing, traditional telephony, and Internet telephony was unwrapped in pilot form by Microsoft at the VON Fall 2004 conference on Voice-over Internet Protocol technology.
Microsoft said October 19 it hoped to bring the product – code named Istanbul and based on the “buddy list” instant messaging concept – out in full some time during the first six months of 2005, competing with comparable efforts from rivals IBM (Lotus Instand Messaging) and Convoq (As Soon As Present, or ASAP). The idea, Microsoft said, is to enhance the buddy-list idea so workers can pick the best way to communicate in any given moment, putting an end to telephone tag and choosing between instant message, e-mail, or Web conferencing from the same single application.
"Microsoft is taking this presence information and embedding it in all kinds of applications," Anoop Gupta, vice president of Microsoft's real-time collaboration efforts, said at VON Fall 2004.
This follows the Redmond, Washington software empire’s July announcement of plans for offering business user interoperability between MSN messaging programs and those who use AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger programs. Designed to run in hand with Microsoft’s Live Communications Server, Istanbul is aimed to let you communicate no matter what individual instant messaging program you or your partners are using, Gupta said.
Istanbul is testing now with corporate clients, he added. The ultimate idea is to let an Istanbul user pick immediately to answer an e-mail with IM, an Internet phone call, or another option without constant switching between programs, not to mention launching impromptu realtime remote meetings without arranging Web or phone conferences with passwords and other coding, Gupta said.
The competitor applications don’t seem to be edgy about Microsoft jumping in. If you believe Convoq chief technology officer Christopher Herot, they’re thinking the opposite – that Microsoft jumping in lends instant validity to the concept. "To me, it's important that they're giving legitimacy to this category," Herot said at VON Fall 2004. "The fact that someone like Microsoft is saying this is a serious business tool is a good thing."
