Instant Messengers clear decks for VoIP war

Yahoo and Microsoft cleared the decks today for a battle to capture the burgeoning Voice over IP market using their respective instant messaging products.

Yahoo, a partner of BT in Britain, announced a set of new set of plug-ins for Yahoo Messenger, a version of which is branded BT Communicator

The plug-ins include a blog viewer, Ebay and Amazon access, and a free radio station that can deliver music of your stated preference. A software kit allows developers to create their own plug-ins.

Other new features include sound effects and the ability to transfer files of up to 1GB.

The announcement coincided with the launch of rival Windows Live Messenger, the next-generation MSN Messenger, which Microsoft says makes video and voice calls easier than ever.

It is integrated with Windows Live services such as MSN Spaces and Live Mail, and allows you to make international calls at local rates.

But, significantly, Microsoft appears to have concluded that success will depend as much on hardware as on software. BT has a number of handsets designed make web calls as easy as the dial-up version.

Microsoft and Philips have got together to design a smart handset acts as a standard untethered home phone but also makes voice calls. It uses Dect, the technology used in existing home wireless phones; unlike the Wifi used in some models this was designed for the use of voice.

Watch out for a review of this model soon on the PCW website.

Microsoft has also announced two new webcams that the company says are optimised for use with Live Messenger.

Nokia too got in on the VoIP act today with a demonstration of its 770 web tablet which has been enabled for Google Talk.