Fast Forwarding your Business with Instant Messaging

Written by Lee Traupel


Continued from page 1

Whose technology do you choose? There are some clear market leaders inrepparttar Instant Messaging marketing including Microsoft (no surprise here) http://messenger.microsoft.com But, like most Microsoft technology ools you pay a price forrepparttar 133553 software/services, albeit a small one. You have to register with Microsoft's NET Passport www.microsoft.com/myservices/passport service which is designed to be a universal login - this only takes a few minutes but be forewarned they also try to get you to setup a Hot Mail account, but you can work around this.

The other dominant IM product is AOL's ICQ product http://web.icq.com - it has similar functionality as Microsoft's application. A great Israeli company, Mirabellis, Inc., subsequently acquired by AOL, developedrepparttar 133554 original technology. My chief complaint with this product isrepparttar 133555 irritating banner ads that AOL keeps pushing at you when you are utilizing their product. But, it's a small price to pay for a free product onrepparttar 133556 client side.

Yahoo also has an IM product ("Yahoo Messenger") but I am not convinced this will stay as a core part of their business, as they appear to be still trying to figure out what they are going to become inrepparttar 133557 post ".com gold rush era" market; i.e. Portal, Directory, Media giant, software/services company, etc. And, they've certainly jettisoned parts of their businessrepparttar 133558 last 12-18 months and I would wager they've had discussions about getting out ofrepparttar 133559 IM business.

Finally, IM is also quickly moving into other markets and devices including PDAs and Pagers - if you're a real geek and you can't stand to be out of touch while your inrepparttar 133560 shower and you have a water proof device you can ping away. But, I think we all need some down time for friends and family, but wanted to make sure I covered all possible bases with this column - until next time!



Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com, a marketing services and software company which provides strategic and tactical marketing services exclusively to small to medium sized companies. Lee@intelective.com


Microsoft And Peru

Written by Richard Lowe


Continued from page 1

Personally, I don't care whether or not something is open source, closed source, proprietary, GNU or anything else. The software must meetrepparttar needs ofrepparttar 133552 project or it's useless. The Software must be maintainable and have a reasonable promise of future maintenance. It must perform all required functions and as many optional functions as needed. The product must have a good ROI (return on investment) as well.

I've been managing large projects for 25 years, and return on investment is usuallyrepparttar 133553 part that is missed by most technical people. We look atrepparttar 133554 cost of a product and think, "wow, this is free and this is $425, I'll getrepparttar 133555 free one".

That equation, unfortunately, does not work. The cost of a product must be measured over it's entire lifetime and includes many variables. These include training (teaching people how to use it and keep it going as well as changing it), maintenance, security, hardware, "fit" torepparttar 133556 requirements, and dozens (if not hundreds) of other things. I've found that once ALL ofrepparttar 133557 variables are factored in, Microsoft does not come out as bad as most people would like to think.

Microsoft is being a little heavy handed here, and I'm somewhat surprised thatrepparttar 133558 US Government is playing along. I don't see any vital US interests threatened.

However, one must remember that there were no vital US interests threatened in Guatemala inrepparttar 133559 1950s. There were justrepparttar 133560 Dole banana farms, which were in danger of being taken over byrepparttar 133561 democratic government. So good old president Eisenhower ordered repparttar 133562 CIA to overthrow that government and replaced it with a much less democratic version, which, of course, was "smart enough" to leaverepparttar 133563 Dole banana farms alone. Don't believe me, read your history books. (This is one ofrepparttar 133564 more despicable chapters in American history - aiding inrepparttar 133565 overthrow of a legitimate government so that some banana company would not be inconvenienced.)

Point beingrepparttar 133566 government may not in actually have a vital interest at stake, butrepparttar 133567 officials may, or large corporations which have contributed lots of money may as well. This might makerepparttar 133568 government do things which, onrepparttar 133569 face of it, make no sense (and on deeper analysis still don't make any sense).

So am I opposed to Microsoft's attempt to stop Peru? Of course as it is meddling inrepparttar 133570 affairs of another country. Do I understand why it's doing this? Of course. And do I understand whyrepparttar 133571 US government is playing along? Sure, it's pretty obvious.

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.


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