For Immediate Release

Coalition to Allow Interested Companies to Review Specifications

WASHINGTON - Aug. 31, 2000 - IMUnified, a coalition of leading technology and instant messaging (IM) companies, today announced the completion of technical specifications that will enable functional interoperability among its members' instant messaging services in a seamless, convenient, private and secure manner. Additionally, IMUnified is allowing companies that have expressed interest in joining the coalition to have the opportunity to review these specifications.

Earlier this year, IMUnified, which includes AT&T, Excite@Home, iCAST, the MSN^® network of Internet services, Odigo, Phone.com, Prodigy, Tribal Voice and Yahoo!, announced its goal to develop these specifications by the end of August. These specifications are a significant step forward in the industry's effort to establish an open, standards-based, interoperable instant messaging protocol. IMUnified looks forward to the implementation of these specifications among its members by the end of the year.

About IMUnified

IMUnified, a recently formed coalition of leading technology and instant messaging companies, has been created to provide functional interoperability enabling its members' Internet users to communicate freely with each other. IMUnified strives to implement open standards-based interoperability for instant messaging as these protocols emerge from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standardization process. The founding members of IMUnified are AT&T, Excite@Home, iCAST, MSN, Odigo, Phone.com, Prodigy, Tribal Voice and Yahoo! More information on IMUnified and its activities can be found at http://www.IMUnified.org.

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Microsoft and MSN are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information, press only:

Melissa Banks, Waggener Edstrom, (503) 443-7222, melissab@wagged.com

Media Contacts:
Tricia Fahey Waggener Edstrom (425) 637-9097 triciaf@wagged.com	Adrienne Woodward Edelman Public Relations (202) 326-1709 adrienne_woodward@edelman.com
For Release 6 a.m. EDT July 25, 2000

WASHINGTON — July 25, 2000 — Leading technology and instant messaging (IM) companies today announced the launch of a new coalition: IMUnified. The goal of this coalition is to rapidly enable users of all members' instant messaging services to communicate in a seamless, convenient, private and secure manner. The founding members of IMUnified are AT&T Corp., Excite@Home, iCAST Corp., the MSN^® network of Internet services, Odigo, Phone.com, Prodigy, Tribal Voice and Yahoo! Inc.

IMUnified intends to make publicly available by the end of August a set of specifications that will enable functional interoperability among its members’ instant messaging services. Coalition members plan to implement this functional interoperability during the fall. IMUnified intends to be among the first to support protocols developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in its efforts to create standards for IM interoperability.

"Internet users want to exchange instant messages with each other, regardless of which service they use," said Brian Park, senior producer at Yahoo! "We welcome the participation of other interested IM companies who share the vision of interoperability based on open standards and encourage them to join our efforts."

"An open standard for instant messaging will be a big win for the users of all of our services," said Ross Bagully, CEO of Tribal Voice. "We are committed to supporting the creation of an open-standards solution based on the work going on at the IETF. Today’s announcement brings us one step closer to making open communication between all instant messaging services a reality."

Initially, IMUnified will build upon technologies already used by many coalition members to enable their Internet users to communicate freely with each other. IMUnified will subsequently focus its efforts on the implementation of deeper interoperability, rapidly incorporating the emerging specifications of the IETF standards process. The ultimate vision of IMUnified is to enable all users of instant messaging services to communicate freely with each other in the same simple and seamless manner they have come to expect from phone and e-mail-based communication. In addition, the coalition is fully committed to protecting users’ privacy and security in the implementation of interoperable IM.

"One of the things that makes this coalition so exciting is the opportunity to work together and learn from each other so that we can create a system that is even more private and more secure than what is available today," said Yusuf Mehdi, vice president of MSN at Microsoft Corp.

Not only does interoperability affect the present state of IM, but it also can significantly impact future innovation. The emergence of wireless IM draws attention to the lack of IM interoperability, as wireless users accustomed to placing calls to anyone will logically demand the same degree of flexibility with respect to instant messaging.

"Web-enabled wireless phones will put ‘always-on’ IM in the pockets of hundreds of millions of new users around the world," said Marc Linden, group vice president of Carrier Applications at Phone.com. "We want to give each and every one of these new users the broadest amount of choice and flexibility when they seek to reach out and communicate with others."

IMUnified, a recently formed coalition of leading technology and instant messaging companies, has been created to provide functional interoperability enabling its members' Internet users to communicate freely with each other. IMUnified will strive to implement open standards-based interoperability for instant messaging as these protocols emerge from the IETF standardization process. The founding members of IMUnified are AT&T, Excite@home, iCAST, MSN, Odigo, Phone.com, Prodigy, Tribal Voice and Yahoo! More information on IMUnified and its activities can be found at http://www.IMUnified.org/.

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Microsoft and MSN are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.