An instant messaging application intelligently infers a user's unavailability from one or more indicia which include the user's electronic calendar. Preferably, the instant messaging application may report not only that a user is unavailable, but also give a reason for inferring unavailability, in order to provide other users with additional potentially useful information. Preferably, the user may specify which indicia and which parameters may be used to infer his unavailability in an editable profile. When another user requests status, this value is returned by the server. An intelligent instant messaging application as described herein provides other users with more accurate and complete availability information.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This is a continuation of pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/720,878, filed Nov. 24, 2003, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Determining Availability of a User of an Instant Messaging Application" (as amended), which is a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/482,452, filed Jan. 13, 2000, entitled "Method and Apparatus for Managing Instant Messaging", now abandoned, both of which are herein incorporated by reference. This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. .sctn.120 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/720,878, filed Nov. 24, 2003 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/482,452, filed Jan. 13, 2000.
