We all use instant messaging and we all know why instant messaging is great. Firstly, we all save on telephone bills, always a good benefit. We always know who is online and available to help us out. Because we know who is available, we can talk to them, often many of them, immediately, take faster decisions and hence give faster instructions over IM compared to email where we always have to wait for a response. We can integrate IMs with other applications to read stock quotes, news and sport etc. saving loads of valuable time.

It’s not just us, everyone is using IM. The IM market is expecting more than 1.4 billion IM accounts worldwide by the end of 2007. With a lot of corporate and desktop users taking sides with popular IMs like MSN, Yahoo, AOL and GTalk, the consumer to corporate user is expected to go from 9:1 to 3:1 by end 2007. Also, the end user IM industry has forced on themselves the ability to talk with other IM networks. MSN and Yahoo now freely allow users for their networks to talk across each other touching new heights in text communications.

Enhanced Enterprise-wide Productivity

IMs greatly enhance productivity in the enterprise. Simply by knowing who is online and available, an enterprise can realize great benefits like attendance and usage monitoring. Because instant messaging is live and available at all times, work moves faster between locations and departments encouraging innovation and collaboration. IMs make knowing and rewarding better performance and identifying weak links between departments or people becomes much easier. IMs also protect the sanctity of enterprise responsibility by using role based permissions.

As compared to email, instant messaging has glaringly obvious benefits. Since IM is direct and person-to- person, it becomes the fastest way to stay in touch with colleagues, vendors, partners and customers. This takes the faster decision making benefit out into your marketplace. IM is as immediate as picking up the phone and dialing a number. Unlike email which requires downloading and formal composition of responses. Email means spam. Enterprise Instant Messaging is completely rid of spam. This also saves a lot of time wasted going through unsolicited emails which has recently accounted for a third of email traffic. IM is presence aware. Unlike emails that rely on probability for receiving replies, one does not start a conversation with someone unless they are online.