Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!
One of the things that has been missing in the IM story for enterprise
customers is that ability to easily connect to the largest IM providers in a
secure and orderly fashion, irrespective of which IM provider is being used.
Today, there is a big announcement about this:
Here at Microsoft, we have IM "presence" in many applications, and from a
client perspective, it's easy with Outlook 2003, and Live Communications
Server does the behind the scenes work (see my article "Sorting Out
Microsoft's Collaboration Technologies") . But, the fact
is that there are many people who have IM presence on AOL, and Yahoo! as well.
How do we tie all of these IM providers together to make it more transparent
much the way email is right now? When someone sends me mail from a non-Exchange
mail server, I could care less (except that I wish they would use Exchange!),
because I just want to communicate. Although there have been efforts and tools
to unify disparate IM networks, none is as comprehensive and seamless as the one
announced today.
Rock thought
for the day: Listened to "Set the ray to Jerry"- a great, great song from the
double-CD version of the Smashing Pumpkins Greatest Hits. Of course, you MUST
have more than just this album to be a true Pumpkins fan. If you get the
greatest hits, make sure you get the double-CD
version as the second CD (Judas 0) is worth the price of
the whole.
BTW: I was unaware until going to TechEd that people expect me to wear my cap
all of the time! When I went around with just my bald head, people asked, "Hey,
John! Where's the cap?" The truth is that I wear it to keep my head warm, thus I
wear it less in the summer. In case you want one, I got it at a little store
here in Woodinville, WA called Sirplus. It's a Navy-style cap.
Rock on.