(Blog)

Everyone knows Microsoft as the purveyor of operating systems and video game consoles, but it’s interesting to hear something about Microsoft working behind the curtain. The company is apparently close to deploying a communications system designed to better connect parties by allowing them to choose precisely when and how they are contacted.

From the c|net article, “Microsoft aims to end ‘phone tag'”:

“For several years, Microsoft has shown demos in which people can choose who contacts them, and when–and through the miracle of software, we are seamlessly connected to those with whom we want to communicate. It’s one of the company’s favorite technology-of-the-future demos, right up there with the one in which the computer dutifully responds to our every spoken command.

The company might finally be close to pulling this off, and if so, this just might be the largest boon to customer service since the toll-free number, and the answer to telemarketing calls. I recall some talk last year about a similar-sounding service being tested out by Google, wherein customers would ask telemarketers to call them about a product instead of receiving unsolicited calls.

Microsoft’s plans, however, seem to involve the deployment of a new software infrastructure that allows a lot more functionality overall, and if it comes to fruition soon, it could be something we’ll wonder how we got along without in a few years, and yet not notice outright.