It's a new month, and Yahoo has just released a new beta of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista with support for voice calls (both PC-to-PC and PC-to-phone) and free text messaging (SMS).
The voice calls support their free PC-to-PC calling, but to make calls to a landline or cell phone you'll need to purchase a
Phone Out account. The rates are really competitive though, starting at 1 cent/minute.
Free SMS text messaging is a real deal. Just type in the cell phone number for your friend and send them a message. Note that though this is free to
you, your friend may incur charges to
receive the text message, so check with them first. I tried it and it worked. I might even use this instead of my phone, at least when I'm sitting in front of my PC. I can type a lot faster on my PC keyboard than on my cell phone!
Here's a brief video from Yahoo showing the new features:
Download Yahoo! Messenger for Vista Beta