Microsoft (News - Alert) CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed on Monday that the software maker’s new Vista operating system, due to be released in January, will include VoIP.

Speaking during a Microsoft partner conference in Tokyo, Ballmer said the software giant will be making a grand entry into the VoIP arena starting at the beginning of next year. Giving only a general outline of the company’s VoIP strategy, Ballmer said Microsoft will be integrating VoIP, e-mail, video-conferencing and instant messaging into a single communications facility that will be incorporated into desktop and server applications, as well as the Vista OS.

Everyone knows Microsoft has been planning on getting in on the IP Communications game for quite some time now - however, it appears the company’s decision to add VoIP to its new OS is a recent development. According to published reports, the details of how VoIP will be integrated into Vista are not yet available, suggesting that the company just now decided to add it (even as recently as August, Microsoft partner presentations on Vista said nothing about VoIP). So far, sources have only been able to confirm that Microsoft Outlook - part of the soon-to-be-released Office 2007 - will offer the new bundled communications package.

Microsoft has been gradually inching its way into VoIP for more than a year now. Windows Live Messenger, for example, which has been out for months, offers PC-to-PC calling as well as calling to external lines. Many viewed Microsoft’s move to add VoIP to Windows Live Messenger as a knee-jerk reaction to the wild success of leading VoIP service provider Skype (News - Alert), which now claims to have 100 million users worldwide. Some have wondered – and are still wondering – whether or not Microsoft is entering the VoIP market too late to make it worthwhile. Still, many see the ubiquitous nature of Microsoft’s software and products as giving it a huge advantage, in that it can now incorporate VoIP in almost everything it makes.

Microsoft made its first major foray into VoIP in August of last year when it acquired VoIP start-up Teleo. Teleo’s products let Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer users make calls by clicking on phone numbers. Since then, Microsoft has been gradually - and quietly - cobbling together a comprehensive VoIP strategy.

Although details of Microsoft’s VoIP strategy remain somewhat unclear, one thing is certain from Ballmer’s statements: The software giant has every intention of staying in this for the long haul.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.