Microsoft Corp. announced the acquisition of internet telephone company Teleo Inc.
MSN buying Teleo is seen as a competitive move against Google and Yahoo!, who have recently ramped up their instant-messaging services and VoIP technologies.
Teleo was acquired for an undisclosed price.
"Teleo has great technology to deliver superior VoIP quality and an excellent overall customer experience. This acquisition opens up infinite opportunities for Microsoft to enable even more relationship-centric communications experiences for our customers in the future," says Blake Irving, corporate vice president of the MSN Communication Services and Member Platform group at Microsoft.
Last week Google launched its instant messaging service Google Talk, which allows uses to exchange voice conversations via the company's IM client. Earlier this week United Virtualities announced that its HotRecorder recording tool for VoIP conversations has been upgraded to work with Google Talk.
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