MS to ship free IM client SDKs

[Rohit Khare]

Gotta love those wizards at MS Marketing who can christen a product  
"Real-Time Communications Server 2003" with a straight face...

Nice move, mostly no surprise, trying to get devs tied into your  
presence platform pretty much requires free libraries and runtimes as  
an ante.

> The APIs will let independent software vendors leverage presence  
> technology, which gives people the ability to detect another person's  
> online availability, in building applications such as notification  
> services or Web-based instant-messaging tools, without having to buy  
> the real-time server. Meanwhile, the developer kit will let telecom  
> companies build real-time apps that take advantage of the Session  
> Initiation Protocol instant-messaging standard, also without  
> purchasing the new server.

Rohit

=====================================
Changes Being Made In Microsoft IM Product
By Tony Kontzer, InformationWeek
http://www.internetwk.com/breakingNews/ 
showArticle.jhtml?articleID=8600323

Microsoft continues to detail its real-time collaboration map, saying  
that two of the development components from its much-awaited Greenwich  
instant-messaging server--now dubbed Real-Time Communications Server  
2003--will be shipped with other products as well.

A set of standards-based "presence" APIs shipping with the real-time  
server also will be packaged with Windows Server 2003, and a software  
developer kit that's part of the real-time server will be made  
available to subscribers of the Microsoft Developers Network. The APIs  
will let independent software vendors leverage presence technology,  
which gives people the ability to detect another person's online  
availability, in building applications such as notification services or  
Web-based instant-messaging tools, without having to buy the real-time  
server. Meanwhile, the developer kit will let telecom companies build  
real-time apps that take advantage of the Session Initiation Protocol  
instant-messaging standard, also without purchasing the new server.

Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc. built its new  
automated call attendant, OpenScape, on the real-time platform.  
OpenScape, which is essentially a real-time unified messaging  
application, is designed to let users have their messages follow and  
find them regardless of location or device type. Reuters also has used  
Microsoft's real-time technology as the basis for Reuters Messaging, an  
instant-messaging application built primarily for financial-services  
organizations.

Ed Simnett, lead product manager for Microsoft's real-time  
collaboration group, says potential buyers should look at the real-time  
server as more than an instant-messaging platform, but rather as a tool  
for making presence a critical piece of a company's infrastructure. "It  
will become apparent to people that presence is a technology that's  
distinct from text messaging," he says.

Pricing for the real-time server has not been released.