The battle over today's instant messenger market is vintage Microsoft, whose strategy enemies call "the three E's" in a parody of the company's marketing mantra: Embrace a rival's technology, extend it to work best with Windows, and extinguish the competition. The software giant on Monday announced Windows Messenger, a text, chat, video, audio and telephony service that will be integrated with Windows XP. The feature has until now been a relatively muted part of the roughly $200 million marketing blitz for the new operating system. But its new multimedia features and its central role in the planned integration of Microsoft's Internet properties elevate the software well beyond a vehicle for text communication. Analysts said Microsoft views instant messaging--a key element of Windows Messenger--as glue for its new Internet services such as Passport and HailStorm.
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