These days, tech companies are rushing to be all-in-one providers of everything from instant messaging to email to calls to video chat, reasoning that if you offer everything in one place, consumers will have little reason to go anywhere else.

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Dropping the text-messaging package is one of the easiest ways to cut down the mobile bill economic conditions deteriorate.

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You may not be in a global organization but telephone, email, telepresence and real-time messaging have allowed the under-one-roof workplace to diffuse into a loosely-joined workforce.

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In Spain, the brutal financial crisis may be one major factor driving consumers to adopt cheaper alternatives for text-messaging.

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The Ascend G 330 runs Android's Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, and incorporates Huawei's own HAP 5.1 Android interface, which enables easy one-step access to key features from the unlock screen, including call, messaging and camera functions.

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One challenge ahead is for ad agencies to learn how mobile location-based messaging works best.

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Both are longtime Yahoo (YHOO) employees who, in 2009 amidst the aftermath of the financial crisis, founded a messaging service that they aimed to be the biggest cross-platform one in the world.

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One of the first to benefit is expected to be Lotus Sametime, an instant-messaging add-on for firms that already license Lotus Notes and its related networking software.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR: Instant messaging joins the firm | The