Microsoft has signed deals with five social networking sites to enable data to be shared more easily.

The company has announced deals with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, LinkedIn and Tagged to enable easier and more secure access to their contacts from more places on the web.

A spokesman for Microsoft told IT news site vnunet.com: "These partnerships will enhance our users' online experiences and the way in which they choose to communicate with their friends and families."

The collaboration will include an exchange of application programming interfaces allowing people to move their contacts between sites without having to provide user credentials to each separate network.

It will also allow Microsoft to launch a new Windows Live Messenger where users can invite contacts from any of the five social network sites to join their contact lsit and interact on-line.

The new service is already live on Facebook and Bebo, and will launch on the other services over the coming months.

Yesterday Yahoo!, Google and MySpace announced an alliance to form the OpenSocial network to lure web developers away from the market leader Facebook.