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Microsoft Istanbul: Microsoft Links PC to PhoneMicrosoft Corp. introduced on Tuesday a desktop computer application that aims to seamlessly integrate e-mail, instant messaging, video conferencing, traditional phone service and Internet-based calling.
Microsoft plans to debut the product, code-named "Istanbul," sometime in the first half of 2005. It will compete with efforts from rivals including IBM Corp. and smaller players such as Convoq Inc. to link together various channels of communications and promote their most effective use.
The products employ "presence" technology, which tells users whether co-workers are online and their degree of availability - whether they can take a phone call or prefer to be e-mailed or to instead join a Web conference, for example.
The idea is to enhance the "buddy list" concept of instant messaging so workers can choose how to best communicate in a given moment, bringing an end to games of phone tag in a world of packed schedules.
"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 in an interview at the VON Fall 2004 conference on Voice over Internet phone technology.
The effort dovetails with Microsoft's announcement in July of plans to offer business users interoperability between its instant mes
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October 20, 2004 | Viewed 18,210 time(s)
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