Watershed moment for enterprise IM

In recent months, IM (instant messaging) has marched right through companies' back doors and onto the center stage. Widespread use of consumer IM products in the office has led to a rash of enterprise IM offerings, and now that the technology has been upgraded to business class, many are left wondering what will come next.

According to some of the keynote speakers slated to speak at the Instant Messaging Planet Spring 2003 Conference and Expo beginning in Boston Monday, application integration, mobility, and a focus on presence -- knowing when someone is available to communicate -- will dominate future discussions on corporate IM.

"We see the ability to connect existing enterprise applications directly and in real time with suppliers and employees," said Francis deSouza, chief executive officer of IMlogic, a company that makes enterprise instant messaging infrastructure software. DeSouza is slated to give a keynote address at the show Monday, and he is not alone in his vision.

David Gurle, product unit manager for Microsoft, and Steve Boom, senior vice president of Yahoo's Enterprise Solutions, who are also scheduled to keynote at IM Planet, agree.

Gurle also pointed out that the issue of presence is one that is often overlooked when talking about instant messaging.

"Presence is one of the biggest assets that IM brings," he said. "It creates connectivity between people and applications."

Yahoo's Boom said that he sees IM as an application built over presence. "Presence is the core driver and one of the main things that makes messaging attractive," he said.

The subjects of application integration and different uses for presence have not been the focus of previous corporate IM discussions, mostly because key enterprise requirements such as IM security, logging, and archiving became paramount when companies looked to replace consumer IM products in their workplace with business class versions.

But in recent months, major vendors such as Microsoft, Yahoo, and America Online have all rolled out enterprise IM products with these basic business needs. The real transformation of IM into a business tool is happening right now, the experts said.

"We are at a watershed moment where IT departments have standardized on the technology and we are now moving into an area where it becomes a tool," said Boom.

And one new way to use the corporate IM tool is to connect to an application in real time, over a mobile device.

This is what Sprint is offering with its recently released Universal Application Messaging product.

"We see IM as a good container for connecting people to the same systems, whether they are on the road or in the office," said Ken Kurz, senior practice principal for Sprint Mobile Computing Services.

DeSouza pointed out that mobile messaging has also been a key driver for IM growth in some markets, especially in Europe and Asia.