Next year the users of ICQ Inc.'s online chat service will be offered new client software that supports Internet telephony, as part of a four-year deal announced today between ICQ and Internet telephony provider Net2Phone Inc.
ICQ, owned since June 1998 by America Online Inc., today has 38 million users of its instant-messaging and real-time chat services.
ICQ is the dominant player in this market, but is facing increasing competition from several players, such as the popular search site and portal Yahoo Inc. with its Yahoo pager. Also, analysts expect Microsoft Corp. to debut its long-announced MSN Messenger shortly. Seattle-based Microsoft already has a community of 40 million using its free e-mail service Hotmail.
Beginning next year Bank of America Corp. will allow its 30 million [M] customers to do their banking over the Web via wireless devices such as cell phones and 3Com Corp.'s Palm computing device, the bank announced today.
Bank of America, which is the largest in the U.S., will base its system on software from Toronto-based 724 Solutions Inc. The software is also used by about 500 customers of Bank of Montreal who are participating in a wireless Web banking trial somewhat similar to Bank of America's planned service. Meanwhile, Barclay's Bank in the U.K. and DeCoMo, a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., is using the 724 Solutions software to allow its customers to do Web banking over their cell phones.
IBM yesterday announced it has agreed to a merger, valued at $US810 million, with Sequent Computer Systems.
NEC has announced a new alliance called the Global Banking System, and that BEA Systems Hewlett-Packard and Oracle will be joining up to co-develop, market and support an application suite for the Japanese banking industry.
Cisco Systems has announced the acquisition of two-year-old semiconductor development company StratumOne Communications in a deal valued at around $US435 million.
CMGI Inc yesterday confirmed that the company is negotiating with Compaq Computer for the acquisition of AltaVista Co, which runs the AltaVista.com Web portal and search-engine site.
The long outages hitting Internet auction site eBay since last Friday have cost the company millions of dollars in lost fees and falling stock prices.
Compaq Computer announced that it will close one of the factories brought into the company when it acquired Digital Equipment and will move the plant's production to California and Texas.