Microsoft invited me to San Francisco’s Le Meridien Hotel last Thursday for an excellent salad nicoise and a preview of new “unified communications” devices. Microsoft and nine partners are officially introducing those devices this morning at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles. The devices are presence-enabled, which means they integrate well with instant messaging buddy or colleague lists and corporate directories.

Chris Cullin, director of product management for Microsoft’s unified communications group, and his colleagues transformed a conference room into three separate work environments for the information worker, the executive, and the mobile professional. The environments included PCs running Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and presence-enabled devices including IP phones, Bluetooth headsets and monitors optimized for videoconferencing.

Using the tools with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, it’s easy to see which colleagues are available and connect with them on the fly. By clicking an icon, I could escalate an instant messaging session into a voice or video call.

Not surprisingly, the executive work environment offered the most compelling devices including Polycom’s CX700 IP Phone.

The phone has an integrated finger print reader, embedded Office Communicator 2007 and many bells and whistles including full duplex speakerphone capability. As soon as the user touches the finger print reader, his or her presence status switches to available and colleagues know that he or she is ready to communicate and collaborate on the fly.

Collaboration requires the right culture, tools and environment. Microsoft, Polycom and other partners have successfully tackled the tools part of the equation and will help countless enterprises take communication and real-time collaboration to a new level. For enterprises to create value through collaboration, however, they must do more than adopt tools. The real challenge, as I point out in my book, is to foster collaborative culture.