At last week's Instant Messaging Conference (see review), I had a chance to get a demo from the CEO of WiredRed, Allen Drennan. In the six months since our last meeting, WiredRed has moved its flagship e/pop product from being just an enterprise instant messaging solution into a higher stratum of the competitive landscape. Specifically, WiredRed has developed a full-featured web conferencing capability to augment instant messaging. This includes audio and video support, co-browsing, application sharing, and desktop sharing.

Needless to say, I started the demo skeptically. "After all, how much could they have implemented since last Spring," I thought. I walked away a believer.

In the demo setting (I haven't seen it working in an actual user setting) it delivers all that was advertised. I was especially impressed with video and audio quality, and the dynamic Powerpoint presentation capability (no need to upload .ppt files to a server, just fire off the Powerpoint slideshow in real-time).

So, WiredRed continues its track record of engineering its way into the marketplace. And with this offering, it seems to be setting its sights on the territory historically reserved for higher cost and more labor intensive solutions, like IBM Lotus Sametime. I don't generally buy into the 'if you build it, they will come' school of product management, but WiredRed is making a solid case for leading with engineering, and then letting the market catch up.