Unified concept of presence

• US 7,614,060 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2006
• Issued: 11/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rao, Ravi T., Singhal, Sandeep Kishan, Manion, Todd R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sough; Hyung S
• Assistant Examiner(s): VERDI, KIMBLEANN C
• Application Number:
  US11/413,565
• Publication Number:
  US 20070255577A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,285 Days
• Field of Search: 719/320
• US Class Current: 719/320
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method and system may provide a unified concept of presence across all connected hosts by providing a common point of access for all presence-related data on the system. The application abstraction layer may provide a common interface for all presence-enabled applications to access and publish information related to locally or remotely-executing presence applications. The application abstraction layer may push presence data to the presence-enabled applications, or each application may access the layer to gain presence data related to other applications. Also, the application abstraction layer may store all presence data locally or remotely.

Claims

1. On a computing system, a method of unifying presence comprising:

initializing an instance of one or more presence applications on a computer, each presence application instance including an application presence store that is in communication with an application abstraction layer at the computer, the application abstraction layer including a system presence store;

each presence application instance generating application presence data;

storing the generated application presence data for each presence application instance in the application presence store included with the presence application instance that generated the application presence data;

generating system presence data;

storing the generated system presence data in the system presence store; and

publishing, to one or more application presence stores and through the application abstraction layer, both the generated system presence data stored in the system presence store and the application presence data stored in each application presence store;

wherein the application presence data includes presence information describing the availability of each corresponding instance of the one or more presence applications initialized on the computer;

wherein the system presence data includes presence information describing the availability of the computer that initialized the instance of the one or more presence applications; and

wherein the application abstraction layer comprises a common interface for each presence application instance to access both the generated system presence data and the generated application presence data.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising pushing, through the application abstraction layer, one or more of the system presence data and a first portion of the application presence data to a presence application.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising sharing one or more of the system presence data and the application presence data with one or more hosts on the computing system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more of the presence applications is executed on a remote host.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the system presence data comprises a system presence state, the system presence state comprising information related to a computing system availability.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the application presence data comprises an application presence state, the application presence state comprising information related to a user'"'"'s availability within the presence application that was initialized on the user'"'"'s computer.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the application abstraction layer communicating with one or more application presence store, the application presence store comprising application presence data.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the system presence store communicating with each application presence store.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the application abstraction layer comprises an operating system component.

10. On a computing system, a method of unifying presence comprising:

initializing a first instance of a presence application on a first computing system, the first instance of the presence application including a first application presence store for storing first application presence data, the first application presence store in communication with a first application abstraction layer including a first system presence store for storing first system presence data for the first computing system;

initializing a second instance of the presence application on a second computing system, the second instance of the presence application including a second application presence store for storing second application presence data, the second application presence store in communication with a second application abstraction layer including a second system presence store for storing second system presence data for a second computing system;

wherein the first system presence data comprises information describing the first computing system availability and the second system presence data comprises information describing the second computing system availability;

the first instance of the presence application generating the first application presence data;

wherein the first application presence data comprises information describing the availability of the first instance of the presence application and the second application presence data comprises information describing the availability of the second instance of the presence application;

pushing, from the first application abstraction layer through the second application abstraction layer, to the second application presence store, both the first system presence data and the first application presence data;

storing both the pushed first system presence data and the first application presence data in the second application presence store; and

wherein the first application abstraction layer and the second application abstraction layer comprise a common interface for accessing the first system presence data and the first application presence data at the second instance of the presence application, and for accessing the second system presence data and the second application presence data at the first instance of the presence application.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first application presence data comprises information related to the availability of a first user of the first instance of the presence application and the second application presence data comprises information related to the availability of a second user of the second instance of the presence application.

12. A distributed computer system comprising:

an application abstraction layer including a system presence store that stores system presence data that describes an availability of a first one of a plurality of presence-enabled computers;

one or more presence-enabled applications executing on each of the plurality of presence-enabled computers, each of the one or more presence-enabled applications including an application presence store that stores application presence data that describes the availability of each corresponding one of the one or more presence-enabled applications, wherein each application presence store is in communication with an application abstraction layer at each of the plurality of presence-enabled computers; and

a processor configured to;

generate both system presence data for a first presence-enabled computer of the distributed computer system and application presence data for a first presence-enabled application executing on the first presence-enabled computer;

store the generated system presence data in the system presence store of the first presence-enabled computer and the generated application presence data in the application presence store of the first presence-enabled application; and

wherein the application abstraction layer publishes, to each application presence store of the one or more presence-enabled applications executing on one or more of the plurality of presence-enabled computers other than the first presence enabled computer, and through the application abstraction layer of the first presence-enabled computer, both the generated system presence data and the generated application presence data to a second one or more of the application presence stores, the application abstraction layer comprises a common interface for each of the one or more presence-enabled applications to access both the generated system presence data and the generated application presence data.

13. The distributed computer system of claim 12, wherein the system presence data describing the availability of the first presence-enabled computer is pushed to the one or more presence-enabled applications.

14. The distributed computer system of claim 13, wherein the one or more presence-enabled applications is executed locally or remotely on the plurality of presence-enabled computers.

15. The distributed computer system of claim 12, wherein the processor is further configured to share the system presence data and application presence data with one or more hosts through the application abstraction layer on each of the presence-enabled computers.

16. The distributed computer system of claim 12, wherein the application abstraction layer pushes the system presence data to the one or more presence-enabled applications.

17. The distributed computer system of claim 12, wherein the application abstraction layer includes a software translation layer providing a common interface between the one or more presence-enabled applications and an operating system of the first one of the plurality of presence-enabled computers.

18. The distributed computer system of claim 12, wherein the application abstraction layer publishes the system presence store and the one or more application presence stores according to hierarchical access rights.