Microsoft Prepares for RTC Launch

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is set to publicly unveil a new series of real-time collaboration (RTC) products on March 8. Celebrities from "The Apprentice," as well as a cadre of Microsoft executives will accompany Gates as he discloses what is likely to be the company's vision to pull communication technologies into Office.

Insiders speculate that Gates will announce the completed Istanbul messaging client, which complements Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005 and serves as the successor for Windows Messenger.

In its simplest terms, Istanbul binds together individual channels of communications such as IM, video and Web conferencing, in addition to PBX and PSTN phone systems into a single client. This is done so that the product can appeal to a broad range of enterprise customers and encourage the convergence of RTC elements into Office.

According to Microsoft, Istanbul has a relationship with LCS 2005 that is equivalent to the connection between Exchange and Outlook. Outlook consolidates address book, calendar and e-mail capabilities, which are hooked into Exchange Server. And Istanbul connects IM, telephony and identity services into a new Office server product.

The announced collaboration offerings will be the culmination of many years of planning and effort. "Greenwich" was the codename for a longstanding Microsoft roadmap to tightly integrate real-time communications into Office.

Initially, Microsoft's first step called for scheduled multi-party audio, video and data collaboration, as well as extended access to mobile devices. The first genuine milestone on the Greenwich roadmap was Live Communications Server 2003, which bundled presence awareness, real-time instant messaging and added support for Office SharePoint Portals.

Since that time, Microsoft has moved closer to realizing its vision with the current generation product, Office Live Communications Server 2005. With LCS 2005, Microsoft fine-tuned Greenwich and cleared the path for Istanbul's arrival, which completes the company's RTC ecosystem.

Some of the improvements that were made include added capacity to send encrypted instant messages without virtual private networks, presence awareness that is federated between organizations, in addition to presence and instant messaging capabilities that are extended beyond the firewall.

Using an optional "Connectivity Pack," LCS customers will also be able to communicate with users on MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! IM networks using Istanbul upon its release.

Although Istanbul will supplant Windows Messenger as the preferred client for real-time communications, Microsoft previously said it would continue to develop and ship the standard Windows Messenger client with its flagship operating system.

Nate Mook contributed to this report.