Instant Messaging is rapidly becoming accepted in the business 
community as a viable communications tool and process - it's 
faster than e-mail, free on the client side, even a novice 
user can easily grasp the interface in just a few minutes 
and it enables remote workers and business partners to "talk" 
and share files and information effortlessly using the in-place 
infrastructure of the internet. Its mushrooming in popularity 
too - according to IDC, corporate and general business users 
will jump from 5.5M in 2001 to close to 200M by 2004. 

What are some of the pitfalls and concerns you need to have 
when assessing and integrating Instant Messaging ("IM" another 
biz acronym) with your business processes?  Be aware you are 
sending clear text messages over the public Internet - so all 
IM technology is inherently insecure. Privacy issues can also 
be raised - these messages are typically archived via the IM 
servers of the company whose services you are using and can be 
made public at a later date. Anyone with a network scanner may 
have access to and be reading your messages and if your are 
downloading files, you need to ensure your anti-virus software 
is setup to scan these files when you open them. 

One of the biggest pitfalls of the technology and process is 
that it adds another communications layer to your busy day - 
but you can offset this by selecting or filtering who you 
communicate with at any point by using the IM interface to 
block all or selected individuals from "seeing" you when you 
are online. 

Finally, like all things in today's computer industry (or 
many) each of the Instant Messaging vendors are trying to 
build applications which don't integrate with the other 
(no surprise here - arrogance has not faded away in the 
business community!). So, you need to assess the installed 
base of the market leaders and make a decision on which 
company's product you want to utilized - my recommendation 
would be to review Microsoft's or AOL/Time Warner's products 
- their installed bases are in the 200 million users plus 
when combined (these numbers include consumer and business 
usage) and they both work well and have user interfaces that 
are intuitive. 

There is one alternative company that is solving the  "IM 
Tower of Babel" issues and claims to integrate well with 
all proprietary apps by utilizing XML technology, Jabber, 
Inc., www.jabber.com  So, if interoptability is important 
to you then I would recommend assessing their products. 

Most of the IM providers including Microsoft are integrating 
voice communications with their IM clients - you may be able 
to bypass your local telephone carrier at some point using 
this technology, but don't bet on it anytime soon - all of 
those lobbyists here in the states need to keep generating 
fees on behalf of their telecom clients in Washington D.C. 
We use Microsoft's IM product and we have upon occasion 
utilized the voice and video features (you must of course 
have a multimedia setup for your PC and camera) and they 
do work. Although the video quality is a little jerky and 
the voice is akin to the old Citizens Band ("CB") radio - 
your Internet connection impacts the quality of both. 

Whose technology do you choose? There are some clear market 
leaders in the Instant Messaging marketing including Microsoft 
(no surprise here) http://messenger.microsoft.com But, like 
most Microsoft technology/tools you pay a price for the 
software/services, albeit a small one. You have to register with 
Microsoft's NET Passport www.microsoft.com/myservices/passport 
service which is designed to be a universal login - this only 
takes a few minutes but be forewarned they also try to get you 
to setup a Hot Mail account, but you can work around this. 

The other dominant IM product is AOL's ICQ product 
http://web.icq.com - it has similar functionality as 
Microsoft's application. A great Israeli company, Mirabellis, 
Inc., subsequently acquired by AOL, developed the original 
technology.  My chief complaint with this product is the 
irritating banner ads that AOL keeps pushing at you when you 
are utilizing their product. But, it's a small price to pay 
for a free product on the client side. 

Yahoo also has an IM product ("Yahoo Messenger") but I am not 
convinced this will stay as a core part of their business, as 
they appear to be still trying to figure out what they are 
going to become in the post ".com gold rush era" market; i.e. 
Portal, Directory, Media giant, software/services company, etc. 
And, they've certainly jettisoned parts of their business the 
last 12-18 months and I would wager they've had discussions 
about getting out of the IM business. 

Finally, IM is also quickly moving into other markets and 
devices including PDAs and Pagers  - if you're a real geek 
and you can't stand to be out of touch while your in the 
shower and you have a water proof device you can ping away. 
But, I think we all need some down time for friends and family, 
but wanted to make sure I covered all possible bases with this 
column - until next time!