Bob Woods

Nearly 40% of the active U.S.-based Internet-using population at home logged onto one of the public instant-messaging (IM) networks at least once in the month of May, while 31% of U.S. business ‘Net surfers used IM in that same time frame, according to a new study from Nielsen//NetRatings. Broken out in numbers of users, more […]

Users of Microsoft Corp.’s MSN Messenger, Exchange Messenger and MSN Chat software who applied a security patch last May for current versions of those packages are not safe if they have installed previous versions of the software after applying the patch. In a security bulletin, Microsoft said the May patch works fine. But a new […]

When it comes to security issues in the enterprise, blame the messenger and not the communications channel — at least that’s what a majority of IT security pros say in a new study from Gartner Inc. for managed security-services provider Guardent Inc. Eighty percent of all network security managers who were surveyed last month at […]

Microsoft Corp. is joining AOL Time Warner Inc.’s AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ services in targeting the growing user base of Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh OS X operating system. The software giant today said its new MSN Messenger 3.0 for Mac is a greatly improved version of Microsoft’s popular instant messaging application developed for Mac […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: After the original publication of this story, America Online removed all references to Secure AIM Services in the Web page and .PDF file referenced below. As of 06/13/02, the company was promoting its Enterprise AIM service via the Web page and .PDF file. Yet the online giant promises that Enterprise AIM is “the […]

Companies can now send large numbers of text messages to employees or even customers — as long as both they and the recipients are buyers of AT&T Wireless services. The wireless spin-off from the once-mighty telecom giant is now offering that not only can handle large volumes of messages, it doesn’t even use the Internet […]

Comverse Technology Inc.’s Comverse multimedia enhanced communications services division is adding multimodal capabilities to its portfolio by signing on the dotted line for wireless IM/presence provider Odigo Inc. of New York City to the tune of $20 million. Odigo’s products include IM servers, SMS-IM gateways, and presence management solutions. Woodbury, N.Y.-based Comverse’s services systems and […]

A new patent-pending technology from Briza Technologies will enable wireless operators to provide credit-card transactions via short-messaging services (SMS) — without any upgrades to their infrastructures. Hillsborough, N.J.-based Briza’s technology uses a proprietary encoded SMS message and it is compatible with all major air interfaces, including TDMA, CDMA, and GSM. The entire system consists of […]

Enterprise IM developer Bantu Inc. said it has severed links with the AOL Time Warner Inc. -owned ICQ public network, because of problems with spam and other irritating instant messages (IMs) circulating on that system. The situation is different with Bantu’s link with Yahoo Inc.’s Yahoo Messenger public IM network — that electronic connection has […]

Independent Internet marketing/development firm e*media Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich. said it has inked a strategic IM partnership with New York-based ActiveBuddy Inc., which provides software tools for developing and deploying interactive agents. E*media says it is one of a select group of developers granted early access to ActiveBuddy’s BuddyScript SDK (software developer kit), which […]

Companies, organizations and governments will be able to internetwork their storage-area networks (SANs) across metropolitan and wide area networks (MANs and WANs) as the result of a new deal signed between Brocade Communications Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif. and Canada’s Nortel Networks . Brocade, which develops intelligent platform for networking storage, and networking giant […]

America Online will soon offer an instant-messaging product that addresses some of the fears held by companies and organizations that want to use the popular public IM network. Through a pact between the AOL Time Warner Inc. unit and digital trust-services provider VeriSign Inc. , messages on the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) network can be […]