by , 2:50 PM EDT, April 29th, 2008

The Microsoft Mac Business Unit (Mac BU) announced on Tuesday that they have released Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7 for both personal and corporate use. The Corporate version includes multi-party audio and video use.

The personal edition features new support for Mac OS X Bonjour instant networking technology, a new contact list search tool, and the ability to give contacts a nickname for easy recognition, even when their screen name changes.

"Corporate Mac users can take better advantage of their corporate network with increased support for Office Communications Server 2007 making it easier to search a corporate address book from within Messenger as well as new support for Mac OS X Bonjour instant networking technology. Corporate users can also participate in instant face-to-face meetings with co-workers using multi-party audio and video conferencing. Additionally, with enhanced presence features, co-workers can quickly see each other�s availability to communicate," Microsoft told TMO.

A Microsoft spokesperson also told TMO that they will have more details to share in the coming months on audio and video support in the personal use edition.

Messenger 6.0.3 was supplied with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. At one time, it was unclear whether Microsoft would continue support for Messenger, but the company always insisted that it would continue to develop the product. Messenger 7 went into private beta in November 2007.

Messenger for Mac 7 is a Universal Application, and the size is 21 MB. Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later is required. The application is free.