Computerworld - Instant messaging (IM) conjures up images of bored teenagers using a software-based gossiping tool. Most IM programs are free, and few competing products can talk to one another, making skeptics wonder how useful IM is in the enterprise.
But some business users, especially remote workers parked in front of desks all day and eager for contact with colleagues, have become avid users of IM as a way of quickly swapping messages and information.
The jury is still out on whether IM increases workplace productivity. But even people who believe that IM isn't an ideal business technology, with its rapid-fire text messages, acknowledge that there are problems with the alternatives. E-mail and voice mail pile up, and a recent report found that more than 60% of business phone calls never reach their intended recipients. Such deficiencies may help explain the growing number of IM users: According to Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., 42% of business Internet users use IM in the workplace, even though 70% of IT departments don't support it.
While many executives aren't convinced of its worth to the enterprise, "the tens of millions of people using IM through the Web must be getting some benefit," says Dana Gardner, research director for messaging and collaboration services at Aberdeen Group Inc. in Boston.
Organizations like the U.S. Navy, which uses Lotus Software Group's Sametime for secure, almost instantaneous ship-to-ship and submarine- to-shore communications, say IM makes life easier. The Navy values having written transcripts of all orders and communiques, which is possible using Sametime.
42% of business Internet users use IM in the workplace, even though 70% of those users report that their IT departments don't support it.
Lou Latham, analyst, Gartner Inc.
Other early adopters concur that IM is a low-cost tool that helps their employees communicate more effectively. But on the other side of the debate are businesses like a West Coast insurance company that opted not to roll out corporate IM software, because its claims agents were always on the go and didn't find it useful.
Functionally speaking, almost every IM program is identical—users have a list of other people's IM handles, and they click on a name to initiate a chat session. Then the two or more people write text messages that are delivered almost instantly and persist in a window on one another's machines. Sametime, which costs a few thousand dollars for a couple hundred seats, adds myriad features, such as the ability for one user to see what's on another user's screen (if permission is granted) or even to remotely manipulate another user's computer. A few hundred Sametime users can be hosted off just one dedicated Pentium PC or an AS/400.
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