Take a message, now

By John Shoesmith
Illustration: Claudia Newell

Like it or not, Instant messaging is inevitable and more companies may be taking a stand on it

Chances are, if you have a teenager in the house, you're familiar with the addictive nature of instant messaging. For many teens, it has replaced the telephone as the main communication tool. Chances are equally good however that the person typing on the other side of the cubicle or wall in your office might be indulging in some online chatting of his or her own. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. While some have likened instant messaging to students passing notes covertly in the classroom — in other words, a time-wasting annoyance — it is starting to gain ground as a viable and productive business communications tool.

Interestingly, the growth of instant messaging in the corporate world has largely occurred through the grassroots — in many cases, users simply downloading one of the free chat tools on the market (such as Microsoft's MSN Messenger and Yahoo) and deploying it at their own discretion. As a result, it is often used without the permission of most organizations' IT departments. For many, that is troubling. "If [you are] talking about instant messaging over the Internet, using standard Yahoo or MSN-type service, it frightens people like me," says Malcolm Campbell, chief information officer at Deloitte in Toronto. His main concerns with instant messaging include, not surprisingly, security and breaching client confidentiality. For example, most instant messaging communication software lacks any type of logging capabilities. In other words, "any correspondence that goes back and forth, you lose at the end of the session, you can't retrieve," says Campbell. And in 2002, this very issue prompted US financial services firms such as Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase to form what is now the Financial Services Instant Messaging Association. The committee, which then had 19 members, publicly touted its lofty goal of fostering technical harmony among instant messaging providers such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN and others. However, it may be difficult to overcome this lack of interoperability between the leading IM public networks, since they have been loathe to open their networks to competitors. This means that a subscriber of Yahoo's IM service can't chat directly with someone on an MSN service — although some gateways operated by third parties offer work-arounds to bridge the gap.

Despite his overall reservations about instant messaging and the fact that it lacks clear standards, Campbell sees its merits in the corporate environment — especially when deployed within an intranet. "It's a valuable tool when people are available at their workstation, if you want to phone them or get a quick response. I like it in that regard."

Whether he or other IT managers like it or not it may already be a moot point. The move toward the increased use of instant messaging in the enterprise is almost inevitable, according to Michael Osterman, a US-based consultant and one of the few research analysts that tracks the usage of instant messaging. In a 2002 report he predicted big things for instant messaging. He says it is already pervasive in US businesses — in 2002, 84% of enterprises had at least some level of instant messaging operating within the corporate network. In 2004, he forecasts 90% to 95% of enterprises will use instant messaging; by 2007, he estimates virtually all enterprises will employ instant messaging.

What's most surprising about this high usage is that it has come without much marketing fanfare from the likes of Microsoft, IBM and others that make chat software. In fact, Microsoft might want the corporate world to forget about its early efforts in promoting Messenger: it produced a TV spot that showed a procrastinating cubicle worker being "chatted" by a work colleague, alerting him that his boss was on his way down the hall — thus prompting him to look busy. Today, however, Microsoft touts the improved productivity that Messenger offers. For one, says Ben Watson, a senior product manager at Microsoft Canada, instant messaging is less of a time-waster than other communication tools. "It's a lot less taxing from a productivity standpoint to fire off a couple of instant messages than picking up a phone and making a call," he says.

Watson believes that Messenger has benefited from positive word of mouth, especially in the corporate world. "It seems to have happened organically within the enterprise," he says of Messenger's growth. "One person starts using it, and someone else says hey you should be using this, and it builds on top of itself in a very organic fashion." For many users, it has simply become another part of their everyday work tools, says Joanne Clerk, national sales manager, Lotus software, IBM Canada, which manufactures its own instant communications software called SameTime. She says the product has become so entrenched at IBM, "we'd have a revolution on our hands if they tried to take it away." She says IBM has more than 300,000 SameTime users — at peak times, it's been known to have more than 100,000 concurrent users.

Both IBM and Microsoft, among the other instant messaging software providers, are touting not just the benefits of IM, but also its potential as the anchor in an overall shift toward the collaborative work environment. Many are calling this movement the "virtual workstation." For example, the chat tools will offer more than just instant chatting capabilities, they will also allow for virtual "white boarding" and application and file sharing, as well as support message encryption for increased security. For its part, Microsoft is making a big IM push in the newest version of its Office System 2003, released October 2003. The latest version includes its Live Communications Server, which, along with Windows Messenger 5.0, will let users take advantage of such features as Active Directory integration, user searching, roaming contacts, as well as integration with other products in the Microsoft Office System.

That's good news to IT folks such as Campbell. He says Deloitte will soon be making a move toward adopting an instant messaging service within the company on its corporate intranet — it's a no-brainer, especially since many already use the technology without IT's blessing. What Campbell hopes to provide to Deloitte employees is an awareness of how to use the technology appropriately — in much the same way e-mail etiquette was developed when it became a mainstay within every company. It is important to have corporate standards and practices around the use of IM, says Campbell. "Keeping client information confidential is drilled into everybody's head on day one, and everyday thereafter. So if people realize that, they won't use [instant messaging] for that."

Watson agrees a company should mandate rules about IM usage, but that should also extend to every software tool on a user's desktop. "If you have a policy that dictates what's on the desktop, that policy should include the organization's view on instant messaging," he says. "You should take a stance on any technology that exists within the organization." Still, he recognizes this is not something many organizations are currently taking a stance on. Rather, some shut down ports on firewalls to prevent using instant messaging; some let it run rampant because they don't feel they could control it. Others have a hybrid approach, or allow usage along divisions: the marketing department can have it, but technicians can't.

Ultimately, the feeling is that as the younger generation moves into the workforce over the next decade, it will simply come to expect it as a necessary tool. But this generation has also grown up with the cellphone and pager. That's when things can get even more complicated, says Campbell. "Messaging is going to get more diverse and complex. You're going to give those pagers, a BlackBerry, instant messaging, voice mail, e-mail. You have to sit down and intelligently select the product mix because you can't have people being messaged to death. They have to have some time alone to get their work done."

John Shoesmith is a Toronto-based freelance writer

Technical Editor: Deryck Williams, CMC, FCA, partner, PKF Hill in Toronto