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A ROW HAS BROKEN out in the Middle East over whether Microsoft has special software designed for the Israeli government which tracks Arabian users of the Interweb. Earlier this month, we reported on a deal Microsoft and the Israel defence establishment signed. See Israel defence establishment signs up to Microsoft.

That deal – worth around $21.25 million was largely financed by US aid, our report said at the time. Saudi Arabian English daily, the Arab News, today quotes the Microsoft Arabia marketing manager, Fahd Al-Sudaihri, as claiming that his firm does not develop "software programs especially for military purposes".

But he left the door open to that possibility, saying it has no restrictions against using its software in this way.

The Microsoft battle systems used by some top end US Navy warships are probably tweaked by military software engineers – who presumably have access to the source code, no problem.The allegation is that Israel has tracked Arabian Web sites using "special software" from Microsoft – a report which Al-Sudairi described as "fabricated and entirely baseless".

News source: The Inq

V-MAIL BANDWAGON LOADING UP

A number of Internet service providers are betting consumers will make the leap to voice and video e-mails. ISPs AT&T WorldNet, Microsoft Corp.'s WebTV, Britain's BT Openworld, Japan's Nifty, a unit of Fujitsu Ltd., plus Web portal Yahoo, to name a few, have all jumped on the v-mail bandwagon.

All that's required is a standard Web cam (popular models include the Logitech QuickCam, the Philips Toucam and the Intel PC Camera) and video-mail software.

Some suppliers charge a monthly fee for either an unlimited or set amount of v-mails. For example, Video Express Email (www.videxusa.com) charges $6.99 per month for unlimited video mails. Or for a $99.99 annual subscription, the company will throw in a Web camera.

Others, including AT&T WorldNet and Yahoo, include v-mail as a free feature for their e-mail offering. Yahoo offers the service through technology partner SpotLife, Inc. of San Mateo, Calif.

America Online, the world's largest ISP with over 35 million subscribers, said it may add the feature to its service.

Industry observers say instant messaging software equipped with video playback will become a common feature in the coming years.

"I see this as penetrating the market and proliferating quite a bit," said Fabrice Hamaide, president and chief executive of Talkway Communications, a Fremont, Calif.-based firm that provides v-mail technology to nine Internet service companies, including AT&T WorldNet.

There are roughly 100,000 subscribers signed up for Talkway's v-mail services, Hamaide said, predicting: "We should see a dramatic acceleration in the market in the second half of 2003."

Talkway says that usage levels go up dramatically once a person gets the hang of it. The average number of v-mails sent in the first month is six, but by the third month, it jumps to 20, the company reports.

MISSING THE MARK

Bullish predictions are nothing new. Two years ago, analysts incorrectly estimated that two out of every five e-mails would come replete with moving pictures and sound.

But observers failed to take into account that consumers would be turned off by the cumbersome e-mail and software compatibility issues. For example, a Microsoft Outlook e-mail user in the past had difficulties sending a video e-mail to an AOL user's e-mail.

Many of these incompatibility kinks have been worked out. And, some v-mails, such as Talkway's, come embedded in the body of the e-mail, meaning it can whiz past most corporate fire wall filters.

Talkway (www.talkway.com) and Smith Micro's VideoLink Mail 3.0 (www.smithmicro.com), two popular v-mail technologies, have been fine-tuned, compressing the video messages to a manageable size.

For example, Talkway says a one-minute video measures 300 kilobytes -- or about 1/10th the size of an MP3 file of a three-minute pop song. "That's much smaller than a PowerPoint attachment," Hamaide said.

While the technology is predicted to make in-roads in one's in-box, it will likely be a while before it becomes a favored tool of advertisers, predicts Forrester's Nail.

"Quite frankly, marketers are not ready for it," he said.

From another point of view, video spam, thankfully, may not be ready for primetime