Presenting a recipient of an e-mail with an option to instant message a sender or another recipient based on the sender's or the other recipient's address and online status

A communications method executing on hardware for initiating instant messaging communication, the method comprising:

• receiving, on a computer and on behalf of a user, an e-mail message that has at least one address field and that is addressed to a first recipient address, the first recipient address corresponding to the user;
• locating, within the address field of the received e-mail message, a second recipient address to which the e-mail message was sent;
• in response to and based on locating, within the address field of the received e-mail message, the second recipient address, identifying an instant messaging subscriber based on the located second recipient address to which the e-mail message was sent;
• in response to and based on identifying the instant messaging subscriber, accessing a server to determine if the instant messaging subscriber is online;
• and
• in response to and based on determining that the instant messaging subscriber is online, presenting to the user an option to initiate instant messaging communication with the instant messaging subscriber.

A computer-readable hardware storage medium having embodied thereon a computer program including instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to:

• receive, on behalf of a user, an e-mail message having at least one address field;
• locate, within the address field of the received e-mail message, a sender address from which the e-mail message was sent;
• in response to locating, within the address field of the received e-mail message, the sender address from which the e-mail message was sent, identify an instant messaging subscriber based on the located sender address from which the e-mail message was sent;
• in response to identifying the instant messaging subscriber, access a server to determine if the identified instant messaging subscriber is online;
• and
• in response to determining that the instant messaging subscriber is online, present to the user an option to initiate instant messaging communication with the instant messaging subscriber.

A computer-readable hardware storage medium having embodied thereon a computer program including instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to:

• receive, on behalf of a user, an e-mail message that has at least one address field and that is addressed to a first recipient address, the first recipient address corresponding to the user;
• locate, within the address field of the received e-mail message, a second recipient address to which the e-mail message was sent;
• in response to and based on locating, within the address field of the received e-mail message, the second recipient address, identify an instant messaging subscriber based on the located second recipient address to which the e-mail message was sent;
• in response to and based on identifying the instant messaging subscriber, access a server to determine if the instant messaging subscriber is online;
• and
• in response to and based on determining that the instant messaging subscriber is online, present to the user an option to initiate instant messaging communication with the instant messaging subscriber.