Getting Serious About Enterprise IM

摘要

Few things in life are more frustrating than not being able to contact someone you need to talk to right away. If there's one reason behind the success of IM in business, it's that you have one more way to get through. Presence indicators show who's online and who's not, and just a click on a contact list makes brief exchanges faster and easier than picking up the phone. No wonder IM has spread like wildfire and free IM services from AOL, Yahoo, and MSN have joined the list of technologies that captured users at home and followed them to the office. Unfortunately, public IM services, which are easy and effective for home use, are worrisome for enterprise IT. Even if an organization can live without centrally administered buddy lists, public IM can open up dangerous security holes in a corporate network. Because message traffic is sent unencrypted, public systems can be hacked, identities can be spoofed, and conversations can be intercepted by packet-sniffing worms. Any company that wants both IM and secure communications should consider adopting an enterprise IM solution.