WSJ.com - Microsoft's MSN Online Service To Upgrade Telephone Feature

WSJ.com - Microsoft's MSN Online Service To Upgrade Telephone Feature: "Microsoft Corp. today rolls out enhancements world-wide to its MSN online service that include improved features for making free phone calls over the Internet, a trend that is attracting a host of competitors.
The new features are included in Microsoft's Messenger instant-messaging software and its recently released MSN Spaces feature, a kind of online scrapbook for sharing photos, text and other information over the Web. Among other things, the features allow Messenger to handle higher-quality audio and video calls between personal computers over the Internet.
The beefed-up phone technology raises the profile of Microsoft in the growing Internet telephony market, and could pose a challenge to Skype Technologies SA, a London-based start-up that has been growing rapidly since launching its Internet phone service in the summer of 2003, allowing computer users to make telephone calls free to other computer users through an Internet connection."