Abstract: The claimed subject matter can provide an architecture and various mechanism whereby a communication client can facilitate a more robust collaboration experience. The communication client can provide configurable menus for launching third-party resources locally and transmitting resource invites to remote entities along with appropriate information to enable the remote entities to launch the resource locally as well. The architecture can provide for peer-to-peer collaboration sessions as well as server directed collaboration sessions.

Abstract: An auxiliary call control component is coupled to a computing system alerts the computing system of an incoming call in instances where the computing system is not capable of processing the incoming call. When the auxiliary call control component receives an incoming call, the auxiliary call control component determines whether the coupled computing system is in a proper stale suitable for processing (e.g., “picking up”) the incoming call. If the computing system is not in the proper state, the auxiliary call control component accepts the incoming call, signals the computing system to enter the proper state, and informs the computing system of the incoming call. When placed in the proper state, the computing system may retrieve the incoming call to allow the user to receive to the incoming call at the computing system.

Abstract: Conversations between two parties are seamlessly and transparently escalated into a conversation between multi-parties with minimal user interaction. If the two initial parties are joined to a central focus and a media, a third or more participant is invited to join the conversation. If either of the two initial parties fails to join the focus or media, the original conversation is restored and the attempt to escalate to a conference is abandoned.

Abstract: A facility for integrating data in conversations is provided. In various embodiments, the facility sends a first message to a responding computing device to begin a conversation, receives a second message associated with the conversation from the responding computing device, determines whether the received message contains an indication of data that is to be associated with the conversation and, when the received message contains an indication of data that is to be associated with the conversation, renders the data. The facility can comprise an application server that receives from an initiator a first message associated with a conversation and responds to received messages, a conversation component that handles messages associated with the conversation, and an integration component that determines whether there is data that is to be associated with the conversation and, if so, adds an indication of the data to a second message that it sends to the initiator.

Abstract: A system for managing updates of an executable component in accordance with an updating tree with multiple branches is provided. In one implementation, specific updates are provided to users with specific problems while general updates are provided to all users of the executable component. A range of lower version numbers is reserved for the general updates. When a specific update with a version number higher than those in the reserved range has been installed on a computing device, an installer may prevent a new general update with a lower version number to be installed. The installer may determine a new specific update corresponding to the general update and provide an indication to the user to install this new specific update instead of the general update. This multi-branch update delivery system enables users to elect to receive only updates that are necessary.