Microsoft Details IM, Collaboration Tools

Microsoft further hoisted the curtain surrounding its real-time collaboration and enterprise instant messaging platform Thursday, revealing the product's official name and saying that the company would deliver developer tools in conjunction with the server software.

The previously dubbed Greenwich technologies, currently in beta, are now the Microsoft Real-Time Communications (or MS RTC) Server.

"Greenwich is standard for real time, so we thought it was appropriate," said Ed Simnett, lead project manager of Microsoft's Real-Time Collaboration business unit.

Developer Tools

In addition to the name change, the company announced that it would release a set of developer tools along with the software, all due to be delivered at the beginning of the third quarter of this year.

Microsoft said that a subset of the Greenwich technologies will be made available as an add-on component to Windows Server 2003. The company will deliver the presence and messaging platform, based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) standards, as a free update to the networking stack, Microsoft said.

"This will allow developers to build applications that take advantage of presence and presence-based router capabilities," Simnett said. Presence is the ability to see when a user is online and available to communicate.

Integrated IM

Simnett said he expects companies to use the tools to integrate IM and presence capabilities into their customer relationship management applications, for example, or to create notification services.

In addition, the company will release SIP protocols from Greenwich to Microsoft Software Developer Network subscribers, as part of a software developer kit.

The Redmond, Washington, software maker released the Greenwich beta just over a month ago, after much speculation about what tack the company would take in the enterprise IM market.

Greenwich offers companies IM functionality that includes data collaboration, PC-to-PC voice and video, and integration with the company's MSN Messenger Connect for Enterprises service, among other features. The company has presented a broad vision for its real-time communications platform, and has painted the MS RTC Server as the first step toward a fully integrated communications platform.

The company has yet to disclose a price for the new software.