9 posts and columns on instant messages

Skype Is Working, No Explanation Yet for What Happened

in Enterprise on December 24, 2010 at 9:22 am PT

After two days of struggling with an embarrassing pre-holiday system failure, Skype appears to be running again today. The company is offering free service to customers, but hasn’t yet explained what happened.

RIM, India Trade Texts, Still Not BFFs

in Mobile on December 3, 2010 at 3:40 pm PT

India and Research in Motion are still struggling to find common ground in a dispute over how much access the government is given to corporate emails and instant messages. According to AFP, an Indian government minister told Parliament on Friday that no solution has been reached in the standoff. RIM faces a January 31 deadline to meet the country’s demand for a way to monitor communications.

News Byte

Microsoft Offers Lync to Connect Enterprise Communications

in News on November 17, 2010 at 3:17 pm PT

Microsoft today launched Lync, the successor to the Office Communications Server and, to hear the company tell it, a great supplement or replacement for PBX systems. In addition to providing a single interface to manage instant messages, voice calls, video calls, meetings and shared whiteboard sessions, Lync integrates enterprise VoIP. Happy customers already include Boeing, Estée Lauder, France Telecom, Nikon and Orange. A free 180-day trial is available now.

Voices

Facebook Glitch Exposed Private Chats

in News on May 5, 2010 at 10:34 am PT

Facebook Inc. said it has disabled its chat service while it fixes a bug that permitted some users’ instant messages and pending friend requests to be made visible to their friends. The snafu comes amid a flurry of criticism about the social network’s handling of privacy.

What’s the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave China.

in News on January 12, 2010 at 4:48 pm PT

Evidently, Google is taking its informal “don’t be evil motto” a bit more seriously these days. The search sovereign threatened late Tuesday to pull out of its operations in China after detecting a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [its] corporate infrastructure originating from China.” Targeted in the assault: The Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
google-china-bike

Palm Pixi Needs a Dusting of Speed

in The Mossberg Solution on November 17, 2009 at 4:52 pm PT

Palm offers the Pre’s webOS operating system in a tinier package: the Pixi.
pixi

Using PC and Mac Interchangeably

in Mossberg’s Mailbox on May 6, 2009 at 4:10 pm PT

Walt answers readers’ questions on compatibility problems between a Windows laptop and a Mac, ways to back up Outlook folders, and more.