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Conferences and forums may do a good job of keeping telecommunications industry insiders informed of emerging technologies, but when Microsoft speaks, the rest of the world also listens.

For that reason, “presence technology” soon will become household words. And session initiation protocol (SIP)—the buzzword at last month’s Voice on the Net Conference (VON) now that it is becoming the de facto standard—could be the underlying technology that turns those words into a new realm of communication.

At the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association show last month, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked about the company’s .NET initiative, which includes the pending release of Hailstorm. Hailstorm is an Internet portal through which users can access many Web services using personal credentials stored in a central online database via presence information.

At the same time, Jawad Khaki, Microsoft vice president of Windows networking and communications, formally proclaimed his company’s support for SIP.

Microsoft also demonstrated the beta version of its next release software called Windows XP—code-named Whistler—which will support SIP.

“It was important that we made that announcement at VON so the industry understands that we are definitely behind this standard because it is not something we will deliver all by ourselves,” said Tom Laemmel, Windows product manager at Microsoft. “Developers and service providers are the ones that will end up completing the solution.”

However, as initiatives are being turned into products during the next several months, the company’s new initiatives likely will spark speculation, trepidation and the type of criticism Microsoft attracts simply for being Microsoft.

But not all the speculation is negative.

“I definitely think this is one of those turning points in telecom history where a provider of service may not necessarily be a phone company,” said Jeff Pulver, president and CEO of pulver.com.

While current initiatives are focused primarily on instant messaging, Microsoft plans to incorporate SIP support—as well as voice and video—into its Windows XP operating system and Office XP productivity suite.

“To our platform, voice is going to be very important,” Laemmel said. “Certainly it is time, and maybe it has been for many years, that voice on the Windows platform is coming into its own.”

While the time has come for Microsoft, Pulver said the time may have passed for others to take advantage of presence.

“When AOL bought ICQ in 1998, they were given a golden opportunity to become bigger than AT&T ever was,” he said. “As far as I can tell, they have blown that opportunity because they haven’t executed the plan that basically enables AOL to be the presence network of the future.”

While companies develop and market presence-based applications, the public will decide if it wants them. New presence technology is designed to give the recipient of any type of communication the power to control the time, place and people with whom they wish to communicate.

“Ultimately, the users will determine how the technology gets implemented,” Laemmel said. “This is cool technology, and where there is cool technology, there is a way for partners to be successful.”

However, putting information on individual users’ whereabouts in a network raises both security and privacy concerns.“Presence-based technology can be very useful if managed properly, but can be abused if not secured and handled judiciously,” said Dwight Davis, vice president and practice director for Summit Strategies.

“We’re moving into a new realm. I hope security can keep pace with the technology,” he added.

Davis said privacy is less of a threat than hackers.

“Microsoft is too conservative and intelligent to breach the privacy of its customers, but can they protect your information?” he said.