UC Berkeley (along with vendor MagnetPoint) is going to be unifying their messaging systems in a web services-architected solution. according to an InfoWorld article, users will be able to access voice mail, e-mail, faxes, calendar and schedule information.

as with any properly-implemented web service, the important developer benefit is that the addition or modification of services doesn't require an intimate understanding of the underlying "objects" and their protocols, just an ability to work with XML. (via WebServices.org)

Advisor.com has an interesting interview with IBM's Bob Sutor about the WS-I, the Web Services Interoperability Organization. the interview also touches on some of the basic reasons why CIOs are interested in web services in the first place:

So, the question is where do they [IT managers] want to put those [limited] resources, especially the software engineers. They want to devote those people to the higher aspects of the application that make their businesses more efficient or differentiate them from the competition. They don't want to spend their software resources way down in the weeds of the application....

"is that a copy of Visio in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

this is the classiest (rather, "klassiest" with a capital "K" and a heart dotting the "i") PR i've seen yet from a software company. (via The Reg)

RIM is bringing its GSM phone-equipped BlackBerry to North America. as phones become more like PDAs and PDAs add phone capability, everybody's scrambling to take whatever advantage they have and turn it into a sustainable market position. for RIM, that means selling the new devices back into their existing base of corporate/enterprise customers (while Handspring's Treo tries to carve out a chunk of the consumer market).

while there are weaknesses in the BlackBerry product's software -- i never used the built-in calendar or contact features -- tight integration with Exchange and Domino should make it an attractive option for enterprise users. (via Reuters)

News Corp's COO Peter Chernin has taken his copyright barnstorming show on the road, this time to London. the CEO of the corporation that owns The Sun, the News of the World, the Times, and Sky again decried the behavior of the average internet user as the real obstacle to happiness in his industry, although the BBC didn't exactly see it that way.

he also showed his flair for marketing by positioning News Corp's internet properties this way: "They are a taste for what (consumers) will eventually have to pay for in the future."

in fairness to Chernin his boss, Rupert Murdoch, has shown a far more ruthless ambition in his quest for global media supremacy. less than a year after launching his pan-Asian STAR TV network, Murdoch was kowtowing to the government in Beijing by removing the offensive BBC World Service from his sattelites. News Corp's subsequently published a flattering biography of Deng Xiaoping, spiked a deal by another News Corp subsidiary to publish a book by Chris Patten (the former pain-in-the-middle-kingdom's-ass governor of Hong Kong), and called the Dalai Lama a "very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes." i can do no better, though, than to quote Chinese president Jiang Zemin's praise (through the official Chinese news agency) of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp: "[Jiang] expressed appreciation of the efforts made by world media mogul Rupert Murdoch in presenting China objectively and co-operating with the Chinese press over the last two years". (via Reuters)

the Times has taken notice of the homebrew wireless/NAN phenomenon as individuals work to bathe the Bay Area in 802.11. it seems that Manhattan would be an ideal location for this kind of effort -- high-density, with a good chance that there are thousands of unsecured corporate WiFi installations. (via NY Times)