In sync with the release of unified communications products, Bill Gates published a well-written piece today on Software-Powered Communications.  The primary focus of this software is Information Workers, it is also interesting to think about the trends and software as they potentially apply to developers as well.  In some sense, developers are information workers, just of a highly specialized variety.  What developer doesn't manage an analogous flood of email, IM, voicemail, bugs, feature request, suggestions, and on and on?

Should the IDE be the hub of all of this communication, or is it better for developers to use all of the standard information worker tools as an adjunct to their use of an IDE, or is it better to have some hybrid where some subset of the unified communication tools are integrated into the IDE?

 --Scott