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America Online (AOL) and WebEx Communications are teaming up to offer AIM Pro, an instant-messaging service for businesses, which provides online conferencing and collaboration. The offering will come in two versions: an enterprise edition that includes administrative controls aimed at large organizations, and a professional edition for individual and small and midsize companies. Both will utilize company directory services and allow users to initiate online meetings, conference calls, and desktop sharing with the approximately 70 million users of AOL, AIM, ICQ, and Apple iChat services. Pricing has yet to be set, and a public beta version is expected to debut in March 2006. A more polished edition is set for release in the spring. It is not clear how many firms want enhanced, fee-based IM services. Some analysts contend that customers really do not want such a service and companies are wasting their money by going down the wrong track. However, IBM is also making another pitch at business IM in its attempt to link consumer and enterprise messaging. By later in 2006, Lotus and Domino users will be able to connect with IM tools from Yahoo, Google, and AOL. The connections will take place via a Session Initiation Protocol-based secure gateway.
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Information Sources, Inc.
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