SAN JOSE--Radvision and Jasomi Networks announced at the Voice on the Net show today a desktop multimedia conferencing solution for Microsoft's newly released Hosted Messaging and Collaboration 3.0. Separately, the companies said Allstream will use the combined solution to provide a hosted collaboration service in Canada.

The Radvision-Jasomi agreement combines Radvision's iVIEW Desktop multimedia conferencing architecture and Jasomi's PeerPoint Firewall/NAT Traversal sitting on top of the Microsoft platform. For carriers, the end result is a hosted solution that lets them offer managed desktop voice, video, data and instant messaging (IM) services.

Allstream, which operates as a division of Manitoba Telecom Services, will offer its Allstream Collaboration Suite to small to mid-sized businesses by leveraging Microsoft's Live Communications Server. Allstream will house all three components in its data center, said Joel Fischer, vice president of marketing and business development for Jasomi.

One of the key elements of the solution is the ability to reach behind corporate firewalls, which is where the Jasomi solution comes in.

For Radvision and Jasomi, having Microsoft's name at the base of the solution will help immensely with carriers, said Peter Benedict, director of marketing for Radvision.

"People become a lot more interested when you have something like Microsoft on the desktop," Benedict said. "This is also the apex of ease-of-use."