Looking to let users more easily hold virtual, collaborative departmental meetings from their desktops, Microsoft and Polycom last week signed a multi-year agreement to link Microsoft's Office Live Communications Server with Polycom's conferencing products.

With Live Communications Server, companies can run their own enterprise instant-messaging networks. The product can determine whether a user is online and available for communication in Office applications, and can extend this presence information to other applications.

In the first phase of the collaboration, Microsoft and Polycom aim to ease communications within a company by letting users of Live Communications Server and the Windows Messenger client see the status of Polycom's IP phones and desktop and conference-room conferencing products, and to launch intra-company conferences within Windows Messenger.

To enable this first link, Polycom plans to deliver software upgrades for its Media Gateway Controller and WebOffice product in the fourth quarter. The updates likely will be available at no charge for Polycom users with a service contract, but pricing has not been set, a Polycom spokesman says.

The second phase of the partnership, slated for next year, will include updates from Microsoft and Polycom and will add federation, which lets users set up conferences with users outside their own corporate networks. The products also will provide a link to the Office Live Meeting Web conferencing service.

In the third phase, planned for 2006, Microsoft and Polycom plan to add control of Polycom products and Live Communications Server capabilities to other applications, including the Outlook and CRM and Enterprise Resource Management products, the companies say.

The agreement between Microsoft and Polycom is not exclusive, says Dean Schoen, vice president of corporate business development at Polycom. The company is free to seek a similar alliance with, for example, IBM, a major competitor in enterprise IM.

Microsoft already has partners, including Radvision and First Virtual Communications, whose products offer capabilities similar to the combination of Live Communications Server and Polycom's products, a company spokesman says. However, these companies don't have the same reach as Polycom, he says.

Evers is a correspondent with the IDG News Service.