* Rise in IM use troubles enterprise IT managers
We have just completed our tracking survey of IM in the enterprise that we conduct every March and September. September’s survey showed that while more organizations are using IM for business applications than ever before, more organizations are also blocking IM than ever before.
Here are some highlights:
* The percentage of organizations currently using IM for business applications reached its highest level since we began conducting the survey. Fifty percent of organizations surveyed use IM for business purposes, up from 44% in our March 2004 survey and up from 21% when we began this survey back in 2001. This is not surprising given the viral nature of IM in the workplace and the availability of free, consumer IM clients that typically are installed without IT knowledge or consent.
* The three most important concerns about IM use are the security of information sent over IM (considered to be an important or major concern by 64% of respondents), too much personal use of IM (61%) and the potential for viruses and other malware to enter through IM (60%). A key reason that personal IM use is viewed as such a significant concern is that IT typically does not deploy IM – individuals do. As a result, IM is not viewed by many IT managers as a corporate initiative, but rather (and often rightly) a nuisance that can create serious security holes in the network.
* The three most widely used IM clients in the enterprise are also the three most commonly used consumer IM clients – AIM, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger. With regard to enterprise IM systems, Lotus Instant Messaging continues to hold its own in terms of overall market share, as well as its share among organizations that have settled on a corporate IM standard, although Microsoft is making significant inroads among enterprise companies.
* Interestingly, IM traffic is being blocked by the largest percentage of organizations we have found since starting this survey, at 33%. We attribute this to the growing concerns about the potential for consumer IM being a conduit for malware, as well as the growing number of IM detection and blocking tools that are available from a variety of vendors.
More highlights of the September 2004 tracking survey are available at:
https://www.ostermanresearch.com/results/surveyresults_0904.htm
