IM specialist Jabber gets new CEO

Instant messaging company Jabber on Thursday named Paul Guerin as its new chief executive officer. Guerin has been serving as a senior vice president at Jabber, overseeing its global sales and marketing division. Prior to Jabber, he was an executive at software start-ups such as Digital Archeology and Torrent Systems. Guerin also has worked at Lotus and IBM.

Also on Thursday, Jabber said it is joining forces with America Online to provide IM services to corporate customers. The deal with AOL lets Jabber's corporate customers share basic presence, messaging and decision-making tools with users of AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Netscape and Apple Computer's iChat software. Jabber said that about 5 million people around the world are using its IM service.