Text messaging to warn students

Following the Virginia Tech tragedy, administrators at college campuses in Massachusetts and across the country have been calling on companies that offer the ability to send text messages to thousands of people within minutes, reports Boston.com.

Although emergency notifications, such as campus-wide e-mails, Web page updates and auto-dial phone messages are already widely used, administrators say the Virginia Tech tragedy has pushed them to look for a way to reach students, anytime and anywhere.

Jim Shea, director of telecommunications at Boston University, says text has an advantage over e-mail, as it's the students' mode of communication. "The students are constantly looking at [their] cellphones."

In order to collaborate with third parties, Griffith University in Queensland has started a messaging and groupware upgrade for its 6 000 staff and postgraduate research students, says Computerworld.

John Scullen, the university's manager of identity and messaging services in enterprise information systems, says the main driver for the project is to "get beyond organisational boundaries".

Having chosen IBM's Lotus Notes messaging system in 2001, this project will involve an upgrade to the SameTime IM service and integration with other enterprise applications.

A local association of rural banks in the Philippines is using text messaging to make loan payments more convenient and lower operating expenses, reports Technology Inquirer.

The Text-A-Payment service allows borrowers at rural banks that belong to the Rural Banks Association of the Philippines to make their loan payments using the electronic wallet service of local mobile operator Globe Telecom.

The association says this system increases efficiency by reducing banks' field collection expenses. Borrowers, on the other hand, do not need to travel in order to make over-the-counter payments.