A service allowing multimedia online meetings directly from mobile handsets will be announced at the Interop New York 2008 conference this week.

CallWave is introducing the beta version of its FUZE unified communications product, which the company says delivers high-definition synchronized video, document collaboration and audioconferencing from any Web browser-, 3G- or Wi-Fi-enabled device.

The production version of the hosted service is to go live next quarter and will be bundled with RIM’s BlackBerry Bold smartphone, expected to ship in early October. The FUZE service combines mobility, high-definition video, secure instant messaging (IM) and the ability to dynamically add meeting participants into a collaborative meeting service that requires no special client software.

Collaborative services are offered by companies such as WebEx and LiveMeeting for laptops but as yet don’t offer a mobile handset component.

“There are tons of collaborative tools out there but not a lot that work well on mobile [handheld] platforms,” observes Brent Kelly, a Senior Analyst & Partner at Wainhouse Research, a Boston-based consulting firm. “For example, there are no plug-ins to allow WebEx sessions on a mobile handset.”

Shown as a prototype 18 months ago at the CTIA show, CallWave’s FUZE uses virtualization technology, rather than client/server technology, to deliver meetings that require no software client, says CallWave CEO Jeff Cavins. Not requiring software downloads addresses the growing trend for enterprises to lock down users’ client devices for security purposes.

Cavins says that CallWave intends to “remake the face of collaboration and conferencing” with FUZE, which allows such high-definition capabilities as annotating and editing full motion film. Users don’t have to dial into meetings with a password; instead, the moderator can select individuals from a contact list and add them to the meeting on the fly using a feature called FETCH, he says.

This is enabled, in part, by FUZE’s ability to integrate with Microsoft Office Communications System (OCS), a fruit of CallWave’s acquisition of enterprise mobile messaging company WebMessenger last month. This week, CallWave is also announcing WebMessenger support for the Apple iPhone.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.