Instant messaging is one of the key features of today's communication. It's
much faster than e-mailing, much easier than picking up (and, probably,
paying for) the phone and is pretty reliable.

E-mails, even if they are delivered at once (which isn't guaranteed) are not
guaranteed to notify the user at once (see for example this excellent
article (and some feedback here) from the Modern Nomads folks on this
question). Not so with instant messages - they, unless the connection is
lost and the sender doesn't notice this or, if it's using a central
dispatching server and it's heavily overloaded (more on these problems
later), promise really instant message delivery and notification.

You may have been a long-time user of desktop-based instant messaging
solutions like MSN / Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, IRC or ICQ.
You may also have a Jabber client - either just for fun (on at, say, the
central Jabber server) or at your enterprise, where Jabber is a decent
alternative (also see this article and "Google Talk might be(come) the right
tool for your corporate") to other enterprise-grade instant messaging &
presence solutions like IBM Lotus Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing,
Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Novell GroupWise Messenger -
and, to my knowledge, the one and only platform directly supported by
Windows Mobile.

Fortunately, most of these services are also accessible on Windows Mobile.
Note that I won't introduce these services here at all. If you're a newcomer
to instant messaging (IM for short) and would like to choose one of them,
which one you go for is mostly a matter of personal taste and the number of
your friends using the given service.

...





more at:
http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/ind...&c=1&tb=1&pb=1


--
Werner "Menneisyys" Ruotsalainen - Microsoft MVP - Windows - Mobile Devices
Please see the Pocket PC Mag Expert Blog (including mine) at
http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/ - you will definitely like it.