Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) has become a popular way for people to exchange time-sensitive information fast or connect in real time with business associates, family and friends. A recent survey of Internet activity in the US, showed that IM is the third most popular online activity after web browsing and e-mail.

Initially, IM was viewed primarily as a tool to stay connected with family and friends, but increasingly companies are waking up to the huge commercial potential of IM. Some of the "killer apps" for IM include real time on-line presence awareness, broadcast paging, emergency notifications, prompt customer service response, news and stock quote updates. At the same time, instant messaging is becoming an important business tool.

Recognizing the enormous potential of IM, the leading Internet players like AOL®, MSN®, and Yahoo!® have all developed an IM capability that has become an indelible part of the service. Only these three most significant players in instant messaging over the Internet have captured 15% of Internet traffic around the world and thus have access to enormous user base.

Multiple Wireless Devices

In the past two years we have seen a proliferation of wireless devices that offer Internet connectivity. Leading mobile phone manufacturers like Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola started shipping WAP cellular phones at the beginning of 2000 and Palm introduced its first Internet PDA in late 1999. Market research by Forrester Research suggests that in less than three years there will be 173 million Net enabled cell phones within Europe.

At the same time, the prices of these new devices have dropped and continue to drop which makes them more accessible. It is likely that in the future electronic devices and appliances like TVs, kitchen appliances, hi fi equipment, MP3 players etc. will be connected to the Web. All that bodes well for the future growth of instant messaging because people will have the option of sending and receiving short messages while they are on the go from the device of their choice. In a ubiquitously connected world, the instant messaging protocol can become the prevalent technology for controlling multiple appliances over the Web.

While different forms of instant messaging have grown tremendously in terms of popularity and user acceptance, the value of the service to the user is currently heavily constrained by the closed nature of existing service provider networks. For example, AOL® users are able to send instant messages only to other AOL® users but not to MSN® or Yahoo!® users. Neither can the participant in any of these networks send an instant message to a GSM phone or a PDA device.

The current state of the IM world resembles a telephone network where a fixed line user in New York can call only other fixed line users in New York but not someone on a cell phone, or someone living in Chicago or Europe. Similar to the telephone network, instant messaging exhibits typical network economics, i.e. the value of the service to all users increases exponentially with adding an additional user. Despite that, the existing online instant message networks have remained either largely closed (AOL®) or offer very limited interoperability (MSN® and Yahoo!® through PowWow).

Our WM Platform creates the technological capability to seamlessly link disparate existing legacy systems for instant messaging and thus greatly expands the scope and the value of the service for everyone. The proliferation of multiple wireless devices and the ubiquitous person-to-person communication possibilities they bring will be captured only if the existing service networks are linked and can effectively interoperate. WebMessenger Mobile Platform produces the scalable, carrier-class server technology that will enable seamless IM from any device to any device anywhere anytime.

None of the above mentioned entities are affiliated with WebMessenger and none of those entities have approved or endorsed WebMessenger or any of its products or services.