Microsoft Monday unveiled the pricing of its forthcoming Live Communications Server

Microsoft Monday unveiled the pricing of its forthcoming Live Communications Server (formerly known as both Greenwich and the Real-Time Communications Server), another indication that the product is inching closer to its third quarter launch. The Redmond, Wash.-based software titan told internetnews.com the server will have an estimated price of $929, with Client Access Licenses (CALs) coming in at $34.95. Microsoft said final pricing will be based on the volume of the purchase. "We've set the price for Live Communications Server to be competitive in the marketplace, we're confident that it represents great value for our customers," Ed Simnett, lead product manager for Live Communications Server at Microsoft, told internetnews.com Friday. "As with all Microsoft products, both on the server and the client side, customers who purchase larger volumes of software do get discounts." As a solution for internal communications, the product's price point alone stands to make it a significant challenge to enterprise IM offerings from Yahoo! and AOL, as well as many of the third-party IM gateways like FaceTime, IMlogic and Akonix -- which log and manage public IM, making them safe for use within the enterprise. Typically, those solutions begin at about $30 per user per year. The Live Communications Server's starting price also is competitive with Lotus Instant Messaging (formerly Sametime), currently the market leader in enterprise IM deployments. The Live Communications Server is intended to provide secure, enterprise instant messaging and presence -- the ability to detect whether a user is online and available. It is also geared to be a platform for emerging communications technologies: Internet telephony, application sharing, and video conferencing.