The latest experiment coming out of Microsoft’s Garage – what Microsoft calls its “after-hours idea factory” – is Invite, a simple app that makes organizing meetings and setting up events on the go easy. Currently available only for iOS in the U.S. and Canada, it will be coming to Android and Windows Phone soon.

Using any email address you can create an event or schedule a meeting with Invite, and then it will ‘invite’ people from your account to vote on the best time for the event. Once the votes have been cast you can pick best time according to those votes and it will show up on everyone’s calendar. As people’s calendars are generally not public, Invite should take some of the hassle out of getting everyone together.

In a blog post Microsoft talks about the simplicity of its no frills but very usable Garage idea. “With Invite you won’t have to worry about whether attendees are inside or outside your organization, what platform they’re on, or whether they have less important meetings squatting on valuable calendar space. Say hello to a simple mobile app that lets you find meeting times that work for everyone from anywhere. Invite. Accept. Done.”

Invite comes on the back of Send, another very basic app (Send combines email with instant messaging) to come out of Microsoft’s Garage this month. Microsoft’s Garage, which was started in 2009, is home to 10,000 employees tinkering around with ideas. Google too has its own in-house idea workshop called ‘20 percent time’ conceived by Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Similar to the Garage philosophy 20 percent time, according to Google is to, “Encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20 percent of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google.”

This is great that tech giants are fostering creativity in their employees, although former Google exec and now CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer have, jokingly called it 120 percent time. Google later refuted Mayor’s claim.

Photo credit: Microsoft