Patent ID: 7554938

Claim:
A method of sending data from a first computing device to at least one of a plurality of second computing devices over a wireless digital packet-switched network, the method comprising: initiating a first application on the first computing device including a wireless digital packet-switched modem, the first application accessing and retrieving legacy data from a remote system within a private network, via a protocol server; initiating a second application on the first computing device, the second application providing an instant messaging service and enabling instant messaging data to be sent from the first computing device to an instant messaging server within the private network via the protocol server over the wireless digital packet-switched network; generating data to be sent from the first computing device to the at least one of the plurality of second computing devices within the private network, wherein data is generatable from the first application as a request to the remote system and generatable from the second application as an instant message, both the data and the instant message being transmitted by way of the wireless digital packet-switched modem; initiating a first communication through a communication layer by the first application using a first application program interface (API) call; initiating a second communication through the communication layer by the second application using a second API call; and transmitting the generated data from the first computing device to the protocol server for delivery of the request to the remote system from the protocol server and for delivery of the instant message from the protocol server to the instant messaging server, wherein the instant message is delivered to the instant messaging server for further delivery to the at least one of the plurality of second computing devices within the private network without transmitting the instant message through the protocol server.