Despite all the hype this year and the various technological innovations, messaging has not really changed that much. There were a few instances of richer messaging technologies like video mail and voice mail coming into the picture, but they are all so bandwidth intensive that even on local area networks they have not caught on.

All this said, I will still say that messaging is king. It still remains the killer application of the Internet world. This year, estimates of the number of messages going through the Net are just skyrocketing. By the end of the year the total number of e-mail messages is estimated to reach a staggering 10 billion messages per day.

Last year, by the end of the year there were an estimated 569 million e-mail accounts, and by the end of next year there will be almost one billion e-mail accounts. Estimates for India are also quite bright. At the end of last year we had over 270,000 users and by the end of 2000, we will have an estimated 1.5 million users. One thing that was noticed about Internet users in India was that eight out of 10 calls (dial-up) to an ISP were not for the casual surfer but by serious e-mail users. So we very much do contribute to the total global e-mail statistics! In fact, on closer examination one will find that e-mail usage in India is probably as high as anywhere else in the world, if not higher. For some reason, technology acceptance in India has been much more rapid than in other countries.

New technologies

As I said earlier, one of the few new technologies that came along last year was voice mail. This year with the proliferation of web cams, it was video mail. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this seemed to be only a passing phase. Serious users came back to plain and simple text. Video mail is all well for sending cute recordings of the grandson to his grandparents, but when it comes down to business, plain text still rules.

One very significant change was the introduction of messaging from other devices like cellphones and other wireless devices. This saw a tremendous improvement this year. The most popular form of messaging of this type is Short Message Service (SMS) provided by several cellular service providers. Since August this year, almost nine billion SMS messages have been through the various networks, and with SMS being free or very cheap in several countries, this figure is shooting up. This year’s estimates have already started getting revised on a global basis and the figures coming in are quite amazing—more than 10 to15 billion messages per month is what we will average by the end of the year. Asia alone contributes more than three billion messages per month.

Privacy

One major issue this year concerning messaging has been privacy. More and more users are becoming aware that they need to protect their messages from prying eyes, whether it be their employers, competitors, or just someone snooping around. Most of the popular e-mail clients now have plug-ins for programs like PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), the usage of which has definitely increased this year. Abroad, government agencies were talking about putting systems to monitor all mail traffic, especially e-mails of known criminals or suspicious characters. Of course, public opinion is against something like this.

Virus spread

A very serious problem with messaging this year was the spread of viruses. Starting with the harmless ILOVEYOU things just got worse. Virus spread via messaging systems could have very easily backfired but it did not. People have realized how critical messaging is to their business, and fortunately, viruses have been taken in their stride.

Junk mail

Another serious issue has been that of junk mail, or unsolicited mail, about all kinds of things finding its way into your inbox and plaguing you. Yes, a lot many messages from the billions per day have been junk mail. But unfortunately, very little can be done about that even now. Spam control and junk mail filters have been set up, but junk is still very much part of daily life.

All said and done, it has been a very busy year as far as messaging is concerned. Businesses around the world have realized the potential of messaging and traffic trends indicate that it has been extensively utilized.

Kishore Bhargava is the CEO of Linkaxis Technologies