As a result, HubIM represents but a single module in the company's larger Hub Connex platform, which reflects a number of trends in the instant messaging and collaboration marketplace.

For one thing, Hub Connex includes a module providing companies with persistent, presence-enabled forums. Parlano popularized the feature among financial services firms, with its MindAlign offering, which enables users to post messages in chatroom-like environments while being able to see past messages after joining the discussion later. In its most recent product update, Jabber Inc. adopted the feature as well.

"People are making these things global -- Asia in the morning sharing information, and Europe coming in and able to catch up and see what happened overnight in Asia, and they can participate themselves and have that carry over to North America," said Gary Reifman, product manager for Communicator's Messaging Services. "It's really interesting to see how it's used, almost like an online 'hoot and holler' system ... where you have a permanent record of what was said."

Hub Connex also boosts White Plains, N.Y.-based Communicator's efforts in integration with other enterprise applications and services. The system's new presence-enabled, permission-based directory module, for instance, can glean information from other business applications or services, while also enabling users, with a click, to transition from looking up a contact to communicating with them.

"It has e-mail, phone, as well as links to different communications systems," he said. "You can double-click someone to send an IM, or on the e-mail address to send e-mail, or on the phone number to launch a telephone dialing application."

Furthermore, the company has demonstrated integration with IPC's turret products, where a user can click on a client's phone number in the directory, "and the trader's phone would ring and the customer's phone would ring. It's smart enough to do routing to do a direct connection, or to go out to a switch," he added.

Hub Connex offers connectivity to other data sources in its instant messaging and directory modules with the addition of an enterprise gateway -- a first for the company, and a departure from a wholly hosted solution.

In addition to laying the foundation for integration with other enterprise applications, the gateway architecture paves the way for interoperability with the major IM networks like those operated by America Online, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Indeed, the necessary technology exists in the product already, and is being offered to clients -- but Communicator currently lacks formal interoperability agreements with the networks.

"We've got the ability for people to interoperate with public or other networks through gateway support," he said. "Now, commercial support -- that's in the works. But thanks to our friends at Reuters, it's become a lot easier now that the examples been set," a reference to Reuters' recent deals with America Online and Microsoft for compatibility with their consumer IM networks.

Hub Connex also will support connectivity to servers based on both emerging IM standards -- EMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) and SIMPLE (Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions.)

The launch of a behind-the-firewall component is a new move for Communicator, but executives said the company would remain primarily a hosted service.

"We didn't set out to begin transitioning the services and software out to the client side," he said. "What we've tried to do is meet demand for more services on top of it. The server is complementary to the service today and still is able to talk to the service, and by having the combination of both together, it's pretty powerful."

In addition to providing connectivity to outside directory, presence, and IM services, the gateway also will offer internal routing of messages and a platform for integration with other IM systems, like logging and auditing tools.

Hub Connex also represents an expanded focus on alerting, with a new dedicated module for creating and fielding alerts. Users or corporate administrators can configure the system to alert them in response to events in other modules -- for instance, when specific colleagues post messages in forums, when a post appears or content is delivered on particular topics using keywords, or when a conversation takes place in a specific forum. Alerts from across Hub Connex are combined in a single alerts window.

The expansion of HubIM into a closely integrated, but extensible, suite of collaboration tool comes as major rivals are doing the same. IBM Lotus recently unveiled its new Workplace platform, which enables companies to cobble together features from its IM, Web conferencing and document-sharing tools via Web services into their own applications.

Like in Lotus' Workplace strategy, Communicator is offering Hub Connex either as a bundle, or on an "a la carte" plan.

Microsoft also recently took the wraps off its new Office System, which ties IM and collaboration into its flagship "information worker" products, Word and Excel.

Christopher Saunders is managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.com.