Microsoft's instant messaging roadmap

Hi all ... this may be a late question, but my company, which is an
international non-profit with desktops all over the world ... has a
significant investment in Live Communications Server for our corporate
instant messaging system. Our users cannot function without this
communications device.

We deployed this solution for several reason:

1) It's Active Directory aware
2) It's NOT connected to the internet
3) We can choose to connect it to the Microsoft public instant messaging
system if we want to.

These were the three criteria for deployment. Only one client met this
criteria:

Windows Messenger 5.1

Communicator 2005 does not (it cannot connect to public IM)
Live Messenger does not (cannot connect to LCS or any SIP system)

So, our company will not spend millions of dollars on licenses for Windows
Vista ... which cannot run Windows Messenger 5.1 and cannot run Communicator
2005. Communicator 2007 is not deployable by any respectable administrator,
because it is not out of beta. Live Messenger cannot connect to LCS.

What gives here?

Instant Messaging is CRUCIAL to business ... and we don't want our employees
infecting our networks by exposing our network to public IM infrastructures.

When is Microsoft going to release a version of Windows Messenger that
functions on Vista, can connect to our LCS 2005 server and doesn't expose our
organization to all the hackers on the internet?

Greetings,

I don't fully grasp what scenario you're trying to get here. You say you don't want your PCs
connected to the public infrastructure (which is fine), but then why can't you use
Communicator?

As far as I've been made aware, there aren't any plans to fix Windows Messenger to work
properly on Vista.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2007 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.
--

"JustWondering" <> wrote in message
news:9466AF73-8131-43B2-9CF7-...
> Hi all ... this may be a late question, but my company, which is an
> international non-profit with desktops all over the world ... has a
> significant investment in Live Communications Server for our corporate
> instant messaging system. Our users cannot function without this
> communications device.
>
> We deployed this solution for several reason:
>
> 1) It's Active Directory aware
> 2) It's NOT connected to the internet
> 3) We can choose to connect it to the Microsoft public instant messaging
> system if we want to.
>
> These were the three criteria for deployment. Only one client met this
> criteria:
>
> Windows Messenger 5.1
>
> Communicator 2005 does not (it cannot connect to public IM)
> Live Messenger does not (cannot connect to LCS or any SIP system)
>
> So, our company will not spend millions of dollars on licenses for Windows
> Vista ... which cannot run Windows Messenger 5.1 and cannot run Communicator
> 2005. Communicator 2007 is not deployable by any respectable administrator,
> because it is not out of beta. Live Messenger cannot connect to LCS.
>
> What gives here?
>
> Instant Messaging is CRUCIAL to business ... and we don't want our employees
> infecting our networks by exposing our network to public IM infrastructures.
>
> When is Microsoft going to release a version of Windows Messenger that
> functions on Vista, can connect to our LCS 2005 server and doesn't expose our
> organization to all the hackers on the internet?

our company has the same problem... i'm testing vista right now but we may
not deploy it since we cannot run WM 5.1 on it...

microsoft should create a patch for it somehow...