The need to provide workplace environments with a secure form of text-based communication in real time with a view to improving efficiency and enhancing corporate productivity has given rise to anew class of software solutions referred to as office instant messengers. Also known as instant office messengers, office messengers, inter-office messengers and business messengers, these applications reflect a logical progression from the days when instant messengers such as AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Google’s GTalk had just appeared on the horizon. Live chat and chat rooms were the rage of the day and kept millions around the world busy and glued to their PCs and laptops. Instant messaging on the cellphone was a twinkle in the eye of developers who had probably just stepped out of their diapers and were waiting to inundate the planet with innovation.
Although developers of software applications exclusively designed for workplace communication tend to shy away from using the phrase “instant messenger” owing to the fact that it is a service mark of Time Warner, instant messengers for enterprises continue to grow in popularity both in name as well as in functionality.
The first instant messenger designed for office use is believed to have been introduced by IBM as a feature of the Lotus office suite. In 1998, IBM released an adjunct to the Lotus suite called IBM Lotus Same Time. Microsoft soon followed with their flagship IM product, Microsoft Exchange Instant Messaging. Subsequently, in October 2007, Microsoft created a new platform called Microsoft Office Live Communication Server and launched Office Communication Server2007. More than a decade after IBM’s innovative launch, an open source application and protocol called Jabber was introduced under the name Extensible Messaging. These strides contributed significantly in transforming office instant messengers into a concrete reality that was not only affordable but also worked seamlessly without being slow and buggy.
Business Grade Instant Messaging Today
Today’s instant messengers designed for enterprise-wide deployment showcase hundreds of features and benefits which make them an ideal communication solution for the workplace. We have explored a few of the more important ones so that you can consider such an application the next time your organization is poised to invest in a suite of online productivity tools:
IP-based Communication
While many first generation instant messengers rely on either LANs or WANs to establish a connection between the workplaces of a single organization, more advanced messengers use only the Internet for this purpose. Such applications are based entirely on the TCP/IP protocol which rules out the need to limit communication only in a small group and takes the dialog across boundaries and geographies.
Remote Connectivity
Office instant messengers today use state-of-the art technologies to send and receive text-based chat messages either within the same office or between one or more remotely located facilities in real time. Employees can participate in group conferences, engage in one-on-one chat, and transmit large files of several mb size simultaneously while a chat session is in progress.
Data Security and Privacy
Enterprise instant messengers use highly sophisticated methodologies and protection heuristics based on 256 bit SSL cryptology to protect your corporate communication sent and received through the messenger. Hence there is virtually no possibility for data interception while the data is in transit in either direction.
There are more benefits that office instant messengers provide. Your employees can send, receive, archive and print soft copies of chat transcripts in order to maintain records and generate a paper trail. They can create online sticky notes with audible alerts and reminders. Employees can also post messages on the company’s bulletin boards such as ride share boards and announcements from within the messenger application.