08 August 2006

Voice communications are headed toward becoming part of an overall software architecture incorporating voice, Web conferencing, e-mail, and IM. "The people we talk to are looking for a distributed software architecture that allows for intermingling of Web conferencing with instant messaging and call management rules," says Zig Serafin, general manager of Microsoft unified communications.

Numerous companies are bringing VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to the next level by either taking advantage of advanced features such as broadcasting, presence, find-me/follow-me features, Web conferencing and videoconferencing, or by using their XML (extensible markup language)-enabled phones as clients for certain back-end applications.