Microsoft and telecoms providers are on a collision course, Joe Macri, the company's Irish general manager cautioned this week as the software giant introduced a raft of new business communications software.

The company's new suite of unified communications software includes products for e-mail, instant messaging, telephony, voice over IP (VoIP) and conferencing. It was launched in the US by Bill Gates this week but won't be formally introduced in Ireland until next Tuesday. At the launch Mr Gates said it was "about taking the magic of software and applying it to phone calls".

Microsoft claims that the new software can reduce the cost of the average corporate VoIP system by 50 per cent.

The core piece of software is Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 which provides VoIP, video, instant messaging, conferencing and presence functionality from within Office products such as Word and Excel. Presence refers to the ability to see if a user is online and what their preferred method of communications is. The whole suite will be based on Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft has released a service pack which provides additional voice functionality for the e-mail platform.

Other products that make up the suite include the desktop client Office Communicator 2007, web conferencing platform Live Meeting and RoundTable, a conference phone with a 360-degree camera that can provide a panoramic view of everyone in a meeting room.

Mr Macri said the products would simplify business communications by bringing together numerous methods of communications which are currently confined to different devices. While it would bring Microsoft into competition with former partners, it would provide "inherent opportunities" for telcos and software companies.

Microsoft is heavily marketing unified communications with a spoof of the movie The Devil Wears Prada. It shows how staff of over-the-top fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly would cope better using the new Microsoft products.