Persistent conversation refers to interactions carried out using chat, instant messaging, text messaging, e-mail, blogs, wikis, mailing lists, newsgroups, textual and graphical virtual worlds, and so on. The persistence of such conversations gives them the potential to be searched, browsed, replayed, annotated, visualized, restructured, and recontextualized, thus opening the door to a variety of new uses and practices. We definitely need to see more of this in Microsoft's collaboration offerings.

How will this help? Bob Serr, CTO of Parlano, writes the following in his blog: "While it is interesting to be people-centric and presence-based, these two components alone are not enough. Specifically, sometimes you don't even know who to contact, let alone whether or not they are available. In this case, you are better off looking for a topic. You don't need to know who you need to know; instead, you are only interested in what you need to know."

He continues, "This concept is only possible if you organize people naturally around groups which are organized around the topics of your business. While presence and IM are a good start, it is topic-based group messaging that will be the primary launch-pad for other, higher-fidelity modes of communication. This launch-pad will be a major contributor in making Unified Communications successful."

As much as I appreciate the direction that Microsoft is taking collaboration, there's room for constructive criticism. In harmony with the spirit of collaboration, wherein people work toward a common goal, I hope the folks at Microsoft consider some of my ideas before releasing the next version. Perhaps they'll read your comments as well. Of you have additional changes you'd like to see, by all means, let's hear them.