Why IM viruses should worry Microsoft
In the coming months, you'll hear Microsoft chairman Bill Gates making a big deal out of presence -- the ability to communicate in real time with anyone, anywhere. With Microsoft Office Communicator 2005, a new productivity application designed to find and connect people in real time (expected to ship within the first half of 2005), users of Microsoft Office with Live Communications Server 2005 will be able to determine from within any Office program who on your Outlook contact list is currently online, and then contact them via email, chat (using MSN, AOL and Yahoo) or by phone. Like simple IM, Communicator 2005 will provide the benefit of spontaneous meetings online. That's the upside.
The downside is that a single virus that can infiltrate email, IM and mobiles (such a triple-threat beast has yet to exist, but the tools are there now) might soon infect large parts of the Internet within 15 minutes or less. Such 'Andy Warhol' viruses have been suggested for years but have failed to materialise. Perhaps Microsoft's marriage of IM into Office will be the perfect vector for such maliciousness.
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