Beginning Monday, users of America Online’s instant messaging service will be able to automatically see from Microsoft Corp.’s popular Outlook e-mail application if their friends and colleagues are online."
Microsoft could have easily beat AOL to the punch on this by integrating MSN Messenger and Outlook. I know there's integration on the enterprise side mediated by Exchange, but this would seem a logical consumer integration point.
My take: This is building features for the sake of building features.
Most people who use IM have their IM client open. If they want to IM someone, they can just check to IM them first. If they're not available, you right click the person, click Send Email and you're done.
Not sure I see the logic, but I'd be interested in the research that motivated this. Maybe it was just some engineer's programming project to learn how to build Outlook plug-ins.
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