Towards Consolidated Presence

Presence management, i.e., the ability to automatically identify the status and availability of communication partners, is becoming an invaluable tool for collaboration in enterprise contexts. In this paper, we argue for efficient presence management by means of a holistic view of both physical context and virtual presence in online communication channels. We sketch the components for enabling presence as a service integrating both online information as well as physical sensors, discussing benefits, possible applications on top, and challenges of establishing such a service.