“Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday said it is launching a desktop application that aims to seamlessly integrate e-mail, instant messaging, video conferencing, traditional phone service and Internet-based calling,” Mark Jewell reports for The Associated Press. “Microsoft plans to debut the product, code-named ‘Istanbul,’ sometime in the first half of 2005 to compete with efforts by rivals like IBM Corp. to link different channels of communications onto a single platform accessible from a computer.”
“Microsoft is testing Istanbul with corporate clients, and expects to run similar tests with consumers in the next few months before bringing the product to market, said Anoop Gupta, vice president of Microsoft’s real-time collaboration efforts,” Jewell reports. “Istanbul will enable users to communicate with others regardless of which brand of instant messaging either party is using, said Gupta, who announced the plans at the VON Fall 2004 conference on voice-over-Internet phone technology.”
“Istanbul will feature so-called ‘rich presence’ technology, using ‘buddy’ lists to indicate which colleagues or friends are available for a range of communications rather than merely through the IM service itself,” Jewell reports. “Then, users could choose to immediately respond to an e-mail via instant messenger or another method such as voice-over-Internet within the same application, rather than switching back and forth between applications.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We wouldn’t mind having something like this on our Mac OS X machines. Blend equal parts of Mail, iChat, Skype, and Vonage and call it iCommunicate
I love the way Apple can build simple powerful individual apps that work with each other nearly always flawlessly. Where MS builds huge software suites that have plethora of problems. I thought that MS MBU had built a stable office for Mac but they managed to totally muck it up with the service pack. Please Apple give us a kick ass Office suite and make it cross platform for mac, win, and linux.
Where do they dig up these whacky names that have nothing to do with anything? They started to go somewhere with the X theme, at least that is a somewhat cool. They could have called it xCommunicate or xCrement or something like that.
Asterisk is available for MacOSX and there are various assistants that aid in setting it up. It would be a good idea for Apple to include that in the server software allowing it to act as a telephony server with an Aqua gui taked on to add the same simplicity that they’ve given to other server side tools. As for the client side, I think there already are moves on Apple’s part to further expand on the interoperability between iChat, Mail and AddressBook. Perhaps we will see an innovative dialer for bluetooth (not to take away from the greatness of BluePhoneElite) and VOIP in Dashboard.
Microsh@t has part of the name right…Swiss as in Swiss Cheese. As with all Microsh@t products, it will be full of holes and put a rotten taste in your mouth!
Great,
Now I can get a BSOD jut by talking on the phone, brought to you by Micro$oftopoly.
If MS is true to form, by announcing an application that will “integrate e-mail, instant messaging, video conferencing, traditional phone service and Internet-based calling” in the first half of 2005, what they really mean is that it will be ready in late 2007 and they will only be integrating IM and vid conferencing.
Longhorn is now Shorthorn and Istanbul will be Constantin-NO, pal.
I already have this on my mac. It is called Vonage, iChat, and mail. It even offers video conferencing … Why would I want to load a huge honking app when I already have all the functionality without the bloat?
When Apple bundled the iLife suite of programs they did not require you to load Garage band and iDvd when you simply wanted to listen to an iTune.
The all in one approach to programing is a thing of the past. Especially when you have a seamless OS like X that allows everything to just sit in the dock till you need it.
won’t be available for Mac anyway, judging by most MS crap… kind of a non-issue.
actually; there is WAY too much Microsoft news on this supposedly “Mac” site WTF!
poo: Microsoft make Mac products too.
I think that M$ go for the all in one app rather than separate apps like apple has, because they do not want to leave open the possibility that a separate 3rd party developer could write any single app better than theirs. Basically, it is a gimmick to divert your attenntion away from the fact that its indivual apps suck.
I agree John, another Microsoft walled garden within a walled garden that is Windows.
iStanbul…
They just can’t get away from the cow thing…had to incorporate some bull into this along with longhorn(note lower case).
john: you say that as if you don’t know what I’m talking about… look around you, if it was only a few articles, fine; it’s not just a few it is a majority here.
IMO, a more fitting name would be “Byzantine”.
Whatever happened to “Do one thing and do it well”? We don’t need cobbleware like this. If I want email I’ll run a email app, if I want chat I’ll run a chat app, etc etc. Well-built, purpose-specific applications make all-in-one cobbleware obsolete, especially under Mac OS X’s superior multitasking.
What part of simple doesn’t MS understand?? Then again, any company with products named like “Microsoft Windows Media Player for Macintosh” is as blind to good design & simplicity as they get.
-sip
Simple things are for simple people