Tomorrow, March 8th, Microsoft's Bill Gates is expected to unveil their new instant messaging and communications product, code-named Istanbul which is a much more advanced front end than Windows Messenger, which is the client currently used with LCS.

The unified system is expected to feature improved links to VoIP and Instant Messaging. According to a Microsoft announcement, "will discuss the newest wave of Microsoft Office System real-time collaboration products."

Genesys will power much of the telephony integration (i.e. IP-PBXs) for Instanbul so you can for instance via phone presence in addition to viewing online presence status.

I also got a scoop that tomorrow in conjunction with the Istanbul (which works with LCS) announcement is that NewStep Networks will announce integration with Microsoft's LCS. NewStep Networks has an interesting integration with LCS in that they can "split" both ends of the call and control them separately, even if one leg is PSTN and the other is VoIP. NewStep can control the calls whether or not it's IP-based simply by using SS7 signalling. I'll report more on some of NewStep's interesting applications they can do in a later blog.