Archive for the ‘News’ Category
PTO Find Key RPost Patent 100% Valid
A US Patent and Trademark Office re-examination has found a basic RPost proof-of-delivery patent valid. In a sweeping decision all 89 of its claims have been left standing against challenges of prior art. Patent holders dream of such things. It is understood to be a so-called “final final” decision covering items such as time-stamp authentication. [...]
Doxo Picks Up Some Friendly Government Accounts
doxo, the bill-paying start-up backed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that wants to eat into the bill traffic important to the United States Postal Service, has gotten a dozen state and local government agencies to join its cloud-based service. It’s picked up the state of Washington as well as Benton County, Chelan County, Clallam County, [...]
Start-up Wins First Skirmish in Digital Postal Fight Down Under
The mystery of where Australia Post’s recently promised digital mail system is coming from has been solved. It’s going to use Volly, the sight-unseen system that Pitney Bowes announced 15 months ago but has yet to put on the market. Australia Post said so last week making it the first national post to sign up [...]
eBay, SingPost & USPS Ally
eBay Singapore, the Singapore Post and the US Postal Service have gotten together to boost Singapore-US trade. eBay has launched a new B2B ePAC shipping service that’s supposed to improve the 24/7 tracking and delivery of lightweight goods. It has two similar services: ePacket, set up in September 2010, to assist cross-border shipping between China [...]
Another US Start-Up Wants To Replace the Post Office
What with the USPS wanting to end the overnight delivery of first-class mail and terminate Saturday deliveries altogether, another start-up is forming that would substitute digital postal mail for paper mail. Called Outbox, the Texas start-up is so young it doesn’t even have a web site yet. But it has gotten the first $1.5 million [...]
Google Wants To Be a Shipper
Google is reportedly negotiating with major US retailers and shippers such as Macy’s, Gap and Office Max to set up an online service that promises consumers same-day or next-day delivery, according to the Wall Street Journal quoting people familiar with what’s going on. It’s concerned that e-commerce and product search traffic is going directly to [...]
IBM To Integrate E-Postbrief into Lotus Notes
Deutsche Post has gotten IBM Germany to integrate its E-Postbrief into Lotus Notes groupware, Blue’s business e-mail software. In the future, users who want to send and receive work as an E-Postbrief and are connected to the E-Postbrief gateway do it in Lotus Notes. They can also send electronic registered letters without leaving their accustomed [...]
IMS To Peddle Pitney’s Volly
IMS, otherwise known as Immediate Mailing Services Inc, says it’s signed a strategic alliance agreement to resell Pitney Bowes’ still sight-unseen Volly opt-in cloud-based digital delivery service to its financial, medical, retail and collection customers. It said, “We evaluated the Volly service and felt it truly has the ability to be transformative in people’s lives. [...]
EquaShip Claims To Undercut UPS & FedEx 26%-88%
EquaShip, which bills itself as America’s new fourth parcel carrier, launches this Tuesday, expecting to threaten the UPS and FedEx duopoly especially among SMB shippers. It claims that any of its shippers will get the low rates that only much larger companies can ordinarily get and save 26%-77% compared to FedEx and UPS Residential Ground [...]
Apple Enters the Hybrid Mail Business
Although it may seem like an evolutionary dead end for the magically futuristic Apple, the company’s going into the hybrid mail business with an Apple-created app called Cards that it unveiled last Tuesday along with the new iPhone 4S. iOS 5-based iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users can create their own four-by-six-inch greeting cards, thank [...]