Real-time communications vendor WiredRed last week integrated its Web and videoconferencing software with Microsoft's Office applications.

The combination of WiredRed's e/pop Web Conferencing and Office lets users begin a conferencing session with just one click from within any of the applications in that suite, including Word, Excel and Outlook.

Building access to collaboration features directly into productivity applications is a trend among vendors, including Microsoft and IBM/Lotus. The goal is to give users access to realtime communication tools without using a separate application interface.

The software adds a quick-start button to Office applications, which provides access to video, VoIP, application/document sharing and presentation sharing. Users also can exchange Outlook calendar invitations so invitees can confirm scheduled conferences or join those conferences from links within their calendars.

The highlight is support for multi-point conferences, which let three or more users connect to a single conference from anywhere on an internal network or the Internet. In addition, users can run WiredRed's software in-house without any need for a service provider.

"WiredRed is ahead of the game when it comes to multipoint capabilities integrated with Office and totally ahead if you want to run that application behind your firewall," says Andy Nilssen, senior analyst and partner with Wainhouse Research. "And one thing that does jump out is that they also do [instant messaging]. There are going to be some very interesting integration possibilities going forward when you control both the real-time conferencing and IM and presence technology. Microsoft does that although they have yet to do the integration. Lotus does it and WiredRed does it. It's a small club."

WiredRed not only competes with Microsoft and IBM/Lotus but also with smaller vendors, including Linktivity and Macromedia.

Office integration is the latest in a number of enhancements WiredRed has made to e/pop Web Conferencing, including support for Firefox and Mozilla-based browsers; record and playback that lets users capture entire conferencing sessions in a variety of formats; and video and VoIP features to support conferences with 10 or more users.