Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Erin Woo

Afraz A Siddiqui

Arnaud Vallat

Peter Nagy

Thomas Charles Underhill

Allison Bellew Sousa

Joshua Bouckenooghe

John J Lotito

Jonathan Jay Cadiz

Jin Ma

William Ritter Avery

Weina Xie

Fernanda Mendes Richnak

Garett Yoshiharu Sakamoto

Corina Arama

Jonathan David Butler

Lingnan Becker

Systems and methods for initiating an instant messaging chat session from an email thread are described. In examples, an email thread including at least one email is received and user identifiers form the at least one email are extracted. Presence information associated with each user identifier of the plurality of user identifiers is obtained and then ordered. The ordered plurality of user identifiers together with their presence information are displayed in a user interface window. A determination to display a user control associated with an instant messaging capability is based on the presence information associated with at least one user identifier of the plurality of user identifiers. Upon receiving an indication that the user control associated with the instant messaging chat capability is selected, an instant messaging chat session is initiated.

System and method for converting an email thread to an instant message group

Systems and method are directed to launching an application from a rail located within a user interface of a personal information manager application. More specifically, a display of a first user interface of a first application may be rendered at a display device, where the first user interface includes a rail populated with a plurality of icons representing a plurality of applications. At least one of the plurality of icons may be selected and a second application may be determined based on the selected icon. Based upon the selection of the icon, a display of a second user interface may be rendered within a portion of the first user interface.

Left rail corresponding icon for launching apps within the context of a personal information manager

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Erin Woo