Microsoft Canada Co. announced the release of an instant messaging client with audio and videoconferencing capabilities. The release of Microsoft Office Communicator 2005, previously code-named Istanbul, was one of three collaboration tools announced at an event with partners and customers. The company also released Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005 Service Pack, an update to its real-time communications platform, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005, a major update to its Web conferencing service. Accompanying Microsoft in a press conference launching the products, Allstream launched the Allstream Collaboration Suite, a hosted solution offering of Microsoft's real-time collaboration (RTC) tools aimed at small and medium-sized businesses which will be available in wide release in April.

"We believe what Outlook did for e-mail, this will do for instant messaging," said Greg Saint James, international director of the RTC Business Group at Microsoft Corp., of Office Communicator. The ability to do audio and videoconferencing over the Web has put back a human element to communicating with others that has been lost in the business world, said Darren Soltes, the vice-president of business development at Homes by Avi, a homebuilder that has been using Allstream's hosting solution for a month. "We try to avoid human contact because it's not efficient, and we suffer for it," he said.