Craziest story of the day: Microsoft plans to make phone numbers obsolete

Bill Gates is talking about using Microsoft technology to end the tyranny — TYRANNY, I TELL YOU — of ... telephone numbers.

I ripped this Gates quote from the ZDNet blog items linked above:

"Right now the mobile phone, the desktop phone, the e-mail that you have on the PC, or instant messaging, these are all very different things, and the issues about how much of your information or your schedule, your current activity you share with people who communicate with you is not well designed.... By bringing together all of these kinds of communication, we can greatly simplify them. We can get rid of phone numbers, have it so when you say you want to contact someone, based on who you are and where that person is, they can decide whether to take the call or take a message about that, and so a great efficiency improvement that can be made there."

It's all part of a product called Echoes that uses Windows Live Messenger to somehow synchronize contacts across mobile platforms.

I can't say I understand a damn thing about it, so I won't.

To clear up that understanding, here's another ZDNet item from Microsoft-focused Mary Jo Foley:

Phase 1 of Echoes will provide carriers with a variety of services, ranging from a common network address book, to SMS in/out messaging, simultaneous ringing, click-to-call, single-sign on and more.

I need a visual ...