Open source IM - it's not an oxymoron

Instant messaging isn't only for preteens - it's an important business application for distributed work groups. But the lack of security and central archival of IM messages presents big issues for enterprise IT managers - which spells out "opportunity" for their service providers.

The mass IM market is locked up by AOL, MSN, Yahoo and ICQ, all of which offer free services to individual users. Companies find that employees are using these services on their desktops as part of their daily interaction with peers and outside colleagues. IM takes multitasking to new levels - employees can be on conference calls and simultaneously ask for additional information or for project status without leaving the conversation (truly talented multitaskers have been known to juggle three to four IM windows while actively participating in a phone discussion and doing online Web research).

The problem with these services, from an enterprise perspective, is that there are no solutions for securing the information transmitted or archiving it to any sort of central database. Chats take place outside the corporate firewall, and file transfers bypass desktop virus detection. Depending on the enterprise's business and the sensitivity of the information, IM can pose a big security and confidentiality risk.

Open source IM claims to offer service providers the opportunity to privately brand its own IM service. With this approach, XML is used to transfer data instantaneously throughout a network between people or between applications to any type of network end device. Carriers can offer a unified messaging solution between desktop and wireless, or even act as an interoperable bridge between other IM services. To best capitalize on private label IM, service providers should consider increasing their value proposition to enterprises by including a few of the following:

• Presence Management - Track Online Employees and Device Being Used.
• Security - Via SSL.
• Proxy and Firewall Support.
• Instant Chats - Personal, Group and Shared Groups.
• Advanced Roster Management.
• File Transfer - Peer-to-Peer and Server.
• Interoperability with Other IM Services.

Large players overseas, such as France Telecom, have aligned with Jabber.com, which has developed open source IM products based on code available on Jabber.org. A few application service providers are offering private label IM as services to enterprises as well, such as Critical Path.

Service providers are always looking for the next "killer app." Instant messaging is quietly displacing some of the need for e-mails and also phone conversations (certainly not all). Since some packages also support voice over IM, it is possible that future voice conversations may be carried via these applications as well. In the short term, there is an opportunity for service providers to package business-grade instant messaging as an enterprise service. Keep the communications on your network, rather than let them slip away to a substitute's competitive service.

Briere is CEO and Bracco is President of TeleChoice, the strategic catalyst for the telecom industry. They can be reached at telecomcatalyst@telechoice.com.

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