Colin C. Haley

Striving to update its products and image, AT&T Wednesday introduced a Web services offering to help corporations and government agencies share data with suppliers, partners and customers. AT&T WebService Connect allows different applications from different sources to communicate without time-consuming custom coding. And because it is XML-based , it’s not tied to any one operating […]

Broadband telephony leader Vonage is looking to partner with a major cable operator in order to expand its service, an executive with the Edison, N.J., company said at a conference Tuesday. “We’d love to crack a top-10 cable operator this year.” Vonage CFO John Rego told analysts at Oppenheimer & Co.’s VoIP conference in Boston […]

Cisco unveiled new security hardware and software Tuesday, but it’s really trying to sell peace of mind. The offerings advance the San Jose, Calif., company’s “self-defending network” strategy, which strives to develop a network that identifies threats, isolates infected components and reconfigures systems with minimal intervention from harried IT managers. It comes as businesses are […]

When the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in the skies over Texas last February, the accident investigation inevitably triggered debate about the future of the country’s space program. In the ensuing months, NASA’s private sector IT contractors waited anxiously. Any significant funding change — be it a temporary freeze to reassess priorities, or opening the coffers […]

BOSTON — Last year, instant messaging went from toy to tool. This year, it will go mainstream, Edmund Fish, an America Online senior vice president, said this morning. To help with the transition, the Dulles, Va., company will strike deals and develop applications and services for the enterprise and mobile markets. “Instant messaging has a […]

BOSTON — Oracle , best known for its database and business applications products and a certain rival software company that it wants to buy, is planning to roll out new instant messaging tools this year. Oracle vice president Ramu Sunkara said the products, which will be sold as part of the Oracle Collaboration Suite, are […]

BOSTON — During the U.S. military’s campaign in the Middle East, a headquarters commander was trying to coordinate a strike against an enemy bunker. He contacted the pilot of a bomber flying over the target area and the captain of a submarine patrolling off the coast. In a 15-minute exchange, the officers addressed a technical […]

Expanding its focus and revenues, mobile services provider Lightbridge will buy InfoSpace’s online payment business for $82 million in cash. The purchase includes the facilities, staff and intellectual property of InfoSpace’s Authorize.Net unit, which was founded in 1996 — the very early days of e-commerce. In addition to online credit card processing, Authorize.Net also enables […]

Just a few months ago, critics in the telco industry joked that VoIP (voice over IP) actually stood for “very over-inflated pipe dream.” But today it’s ready to scale, AT&T senior vice president Cathy Martine said during AT&T’s analyst meeting this week. While AT&T executives marvel at how quickly VoIP has gone from idea on […]

Verizon Wireless today urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to auction a valuable swath of spectrum rather than accept an $850 million offer from rival Nextel . The Bedminster, N.J., carrier, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone , also cited a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the push-to-talk market as an additional reason to […]

After months of development, Lucent and Cisco today introduced a new third-generation networking product for mobile carriers. The offering — combining Lucent’s Softswitch with Cisco’s MGX 8000 Series Media Gateways — helps service providers deliver high-speed data, multimedia and voice over Internet protocol services. It will be sold as part of Lucent’s newly announced VoIP […]

This isn’t your father’s AT&T . That’s the message Ma Bell executives hammered home at the carrier’s annual analyst day in New York today. With its traditional long-distance business still being squeezed by pricing pressures and new technologies, AT&T is leaning on its Internet protocol backbone and existing customer relationships to sell enterprise network services. […]