Microsoft Targets Corporate Instant Messaging Customers

Computerworld - Microsoft Corp. last week detailed plans to offer an enterprise-ready instant messaging service, joining competitors Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc. in the race to develop more secure versions of their consumer-oriented chat software for corporate users.

The MSN Messenger Connect for Enterprises service is due to become available next quarter and is being designed to work with Microsoft products such as the SQL Server 2000 database, which will be used to store messages so they can be logged and audited.

Consumer-level chat tools such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger have been used for years in corporate settings. But the lack of security, user authentication and message-logging capabilities have left many IT managers looking for more functional tools.

Secure IM

Vendors such as IBM's Lotus Software Group already offer instant messaging (IM) products tailored for corporate users. But the Big Three consumer messaging companies are hoping to take advantage of their products' ease of use and the familiarity that millions of end users already have with their tools.

Larry Grothaus, an MSN product manager at Microsoft, said an increasing number of corporate IT executives have been asking for secure IM clients for their end users. Microsoft is also "aware that the competition has already come out and announced similar offerings," Grothaus said.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo last month was the first of the trio to announce the availability of its new business-ready IM product, called Yahoo Messenger Enterprise Edition 1.0. Earlier this month, Dulles, Va.-based AOL followed by launching its Enterprise AIM Services package .

Bridge Product

Robert Mahowald, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass., called MSN Messenger Connect "a bit lightweight compared to Yahoo and AOL" at this point. Microsoft's release "is sort of a bridge product" until a more ambitious corporate IM product, code-named Greenwich, is ready for release, Mahowald said.

Microsoft acknowledged that MSN Messenger Connect will offer only "an initial view" of the real-time communications capabilities that will come with Greenwich. One key feature that won't be part of the initial MSN Messenger Connect release is message encryption. That functionality will be included in Greenwich, which Microsoft has said should be ready in the second or third quarter of next year.

The new offering will let users communicate with the 75 million or so existing MSN Messenger users, according to Microsoft. Pricing begins at $24 annually per user for the IM service, which includes built-in message-logging and auditing tools developed by FaceTime Communications Inc. in Foster City, Calif., and IMlogic Inc. in Boston.

Neil MacDonald, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., said the MSN Messenger Connect rollout is part of a natural evolution of IM technology.