AOL Opens Up its Instant Messaging Service to Brokerage Firms

Posted by Fraser Lovatt on 10 September 2003 at 9:53 am | Tagged as: Business

AOL and Reuters are forming a partnership to provide a secure, encrypted instant messaging (IM) service for commercial banks, investment firms, mutual funds and other financial organisations. Another feature of the service is that messages can be stored, as regulators require.

This is the first time that AOL has opened up its IM service to another network. The guts of it comes down to translating to and from AOL’s OSCAR protocol and Reuter’s own SIMPLE schema.

Michael Osterman, and industry analyst makes the point: “Email no longer offers a competitive advantage since everyone has it. If you offer instant messaging and the ability to communicate with customers and partners, that can provide you with a competitive advantage.”

Washington Post

AtNewYork