Matthew Hicks

About

Matt Hicks covers the fast-changing developments in Internet technologies. His coverage includes the growing field of Web conferencing software and services. With over eight years as a business and technology journalist, Matt has gained insight into the market strategies of IT vendors as well as the needs of enterprise IT managers. Along with Web conferencing, he follows search engines, Web browsers, speech technology and the Internet domain-naming system.

Adobe Pushing into 3-D

Adobe Systems Inc. is launching a new authoring tool for developing 3-D multimedia environments both for the Web and for its PDF files. Adobe Atmosphere, scheduled to be available on Nov. 19, allows Web designers and document creators to build interactive environments and scenes where users can navigate and interact with the multimedia content as […]

SiteFinder Propels VeriSigns Traffic Standings

Propelled by its controversial SiteFinder service, VeriSign Inc. recorded the largest gain in visitors to its Web sites during the month of September. The number of unique visitors to VeriSigns sites, led primarily by its SiteFinder site that appears when users mistype a Web address or enter a non-existent one, jumped 540 percent in September […]

Videoconferencing Makes Web Moves

Videoconferencing is further expanding onto the Web as two service providers prep services to deliver video over the Internet—whether as a browser-based videoconference or as streaming media. In separate announcements, SightSpeed Inc., Glowpoint Inc. and StarBak Communications Inc. each introduced new products and services that enable Web videoconferencing. SightSpeed Inc., of Berkeley, Calif., on Monday […]

Microsoft Commits to Overture Until 2005

Microsoft Corp. is extending its search relationship with Overture Services Inc. through June 2005, despite speculation that the two might part ways after Overture was recently acquired by Yahoo Inc. Overture, of Pasadena, Calif., will continue to provide paid placement search results for MSN Search in the United States and the United Kingdom as part […]

Partnerships Set Stage for Enterprise IM

SAN JOSE, Calif.—With instant messaging moving further into the enterprise, the major IM vendors and networks are ramping up partnerships to meet enterprise demands for management, security and regulatory compliance. During the Instant Messaging Planet 2003 Conference and Expo here this week, both Microsoft Corp. and America Online Inc. announced new partnerships with third-party developers […]

Microsoft Extending IM Presence, Interoperability

SAN JOSE, Calif.—With its Office Live Communications Server 2003 ready to launch next week, Microsoft Corp. is prepping a series of new features to extend presence capabilities, add interoperability among enterprises and build in conferencing to the real-time collaboration platform. Speaking at the Instant Messaging Planet Fall 2003 Conference and Expo here, Gurdeep Singh Pall, […]

Microsoft Mum on Third-Party IM Licenses

On the day it set as a cutoff for unauthorized third parties to stop connecting into its instant messaging network, Microsoft Corp. is offering few details about its progress in creating licensing agreements to continue access. Microsoft last month announced that unauthorized third parties connecting into its .Net Messenger Service, which powers Windows Messenger and […]

Mozilla Launches Version 1.5

The Mozilla Foundation on Wednesday is releasing the latest version of its open-source Web application suite. The Mozilla 1.5 suite, available now, includes a Web browser, e-mail client, Web page design software and a chat client. With the release, Mozilla is improving its tabbed browsing so that tabs and bookmarks work better together, building a […]

Opera Quickens Cross-Platform Upgrades

Opera Software ASA, less than a month after launching an updated Web browser for Windows, has revved another release that runs across operating systems. Opera 7.21 was launched on Tuesday and runs on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Sun Solaris. The release provides a feature for undoing the accidental closing of a browser window and reintroduces […]

Kubi Continues E-mail Collaboration Quest

Kubi Software Inc. on Tuesday launched a new version of its software for adding collaboration workspaces to enterprise e-mail clients, as well as a new server product. Kubi, of Lincoln, Mass., provides collaboration software that runs within Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes. It creates project workspaces, which its calls “Kubi Spaces,” where participants can […]