Creating and running the editorial for Messaging Pipeline has been a fun and interesting time for this technology journalist. Few assignments in my career have been as challenging, and that's the sort of food a journalist needs in order to survive. When I first started, the spam war reached its peak, diverting your and my attention from the amazing progress being made in other more important technologies, such as presence and instant messaging, as well as collaboration and conferencing tools.But spam and viral security are key issues in messaging today, as are policy and regulatory compliance, and all the leaps forward will not change that any time soon. I've noticed now and again that we may have gone overboard, especially in areas like archiving, but the regulations and policies of governments, executives, and IT managers are the necessary result of an environment where abuse of technology and financial systems has run rampant.

That's too bad, but the industry deserves lots of credit for keeping the fun and interesting stuff going. We live in a world where you do small-scale videoconferencing for free, or large scale presence-based communications management at a reasonable price. Players from startups to giants have all contributed, and messaging is and will remain one of the most interesting environments the world of Internet-based technology has to offer.

I'll be leaving after this week to start another web site at another place, this one focusing on technology for small businesses, which has been an interest of mine during my entire career. Perhaps you'll find me there, and we can catch up then. Meanwhile, fare thee well!