Forrester just released a report (purchase/subscription required) titled “It’s Not Your Kids’ Instant Messaging”. For companies still on the sidelines, questioning the business value of enterprise IM, this report provides good additional insight that may help in making a decision to embrace corporate IM as a collaborative productivity tool.

Executive Summary:
For a decade and a half, IBM and Microsoft have waged an epic battle for control of enterprise email. That battle is now spilling over into instant communications, such as instant messaging (IM) and Web conferencing. IM is no longer just a way for kids to communicate — it is rapidly becoming an invaluable business tool. As enterprise architects (EAs) struggle to make IM reliable, secure, and auditable, they should focus not on point solutions but on a larger strategy for unified communications (UC) and real-time enablement of business applications and processes. While telecom and audio and video conferencing providers will all vie for a piece of the pie, IBM and Microsoft have laid out their visions and made a compelling case for why IM is within the domain of software infrastructure vendors. One thing is for sure: The convergence of collaboration and communication will drive down costs and drive up efficiencies as IM technology moves us closer to information workplaces.

Here are some key issues to consider when implementing IM as a core communication tool in the enterprise:

• IM is a real-time technology and users will be expecting sound performance and high availability. It is important to architect any enterprise IM deployment as a mission critical application and to provide the appropriate monitoring and reporting infrastructure.
• IM communication is either already or will soon be subject to the same regulatory and e-discovery rules as email. Make sure that your existing or planned compliance and archiving solutions support IM.
• Your users may already be using public IM networks, such as Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, etc. in a business context. Implementation of a corporate solution should target the consolidation of such public networks to achieve IT cost savings and manage compliance (see above).
• The full power of IM will truly unfold when integrated with other collaborative solutions such as email and VOIP. Be prepared for additional technology investments to expand IM presence into existing applications.

Technorati Tags: Enterprise IM, Sametime, LCS , IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, Forrester

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