America Online, Yahoo and the other providers of popular IM applications maintain that their software is focused on the consumer market. That has opened a niche to a crop of start-ups that are beginning to address IM's rapidly growing corporate audience, adding security features and other improvements to make instant messaging more palatable to executives and information systems managers.
Competition is already fierce for the nascent corporate IM market, which analysts expect to explode in the next three years. Corporate IM users are expected to rocket to 181 million in 2004 from a meager 6 million last year, according to an August 2000 report by IDC.
IM companies targeting the enterprise include Jabber, Mercury Prime, QuickSilver, 2Way, Ikimbo, Ezenia, NetLert, ACD Systems and Bantu.
Lotus Development, a unit of IBM, was early to the enterprise IM game with its introduction of the Sametime application in December 1998. Novell markets a corporate IM application based on AOL Instant Messenger called InstantMe. Ericsson, in conjunction with Oz, markets a secure wireless IM product called iPulse.
This proliferation of secure products comes just as corporate IM users are taking a second look at the wisdom of exchanging sensitive information via instant message, the hazards of which were brought into high relief after the purloined ICQ logs of eFront CEO Sam Jain were posted to the Web, causing the company serious difficulties.
"Security has become the sine qua non for success in business messaging," said IDC analyst Robert Mahowald. "When you hear about something like what happened to eFront, it makes a very compelling case on why a business should be spending money on something they could get for free. You're getting a lot more when you're paying for it, from security guarantees to interoperability with other applications, technical support and increased functionality."
The use of IM applications appears to be creeping up on companies as workers download free consumer-oriented software for an unclear blend of personal and business use.
"Within businesses, a lot of people are using the free IM services," said James Kobielus, an analyst with The Burton Group. "It's a grassroots phenomenon. They're using it to communicate externally with business associates or fellow employees on the road or family and friends. People everywhere are trying these services, then demanding that companies implement instant messaging internally."
