News

Microsoft Instant Messaging Server Gets Another New Name

• By Scott Bekker
• 05/28/2003

Officially named the Microsoft Real-Time Communications Server 2003 only a little more than a month ago, the server is now called the Microsoft Office Real-Time Communications Server 2003.

Including the extensible and manageable instant messaging server in the Microsoft Office System is a logical fit, according to Anoop Gupta, corporate vice president of the Real-Time Collaboration Business Unit at Microsoft.

"With RTC Server deployed with other Microsoft Office System products, such as Outlook 2003 or SharePoint Portal Server 2003, information workers will be able to send instant messages to colleagues from within the productivity applications they use every day," Gupta said in a statement.

In the Microsoft Office System, Microsoft joins two other server products -- the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Project Server. Server-side components used with the Microsoft Office System but not directly a part of it are Exchange Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services, a technology add-on for Windows Server 2003.

Client-side Microsoft Office System components include Microsoft Office 2003 Editions, Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003, Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 and Microsoft Office Visio 2003.

The Microsoft Office System of programs, servers and services is slated for release later this year. Availability of RTC Server is scheduled for the third quarter, a release date that is unchanged since the first name for the product was announced in April. A beta version of RTC Server has been available since March, when the product still went by the code-name "Greenwich." A few hundred customers have downloaded the beta so far.

Microsoft hopes the product will appeal to IT administrators who support information workers and are concerned about the lack of security and manageability of the consumer-oriented services many of those workers use.