Not a surprise ofcourse. The “Netgen” is hitting the labourmarket and they expect IM to be part of (or even the) means of communication …
Instant messaging has moved from the consumer realm into enterprises, where it is increasingly being used as a strategic communication tool. Although official corporate adoption is relatively low, interest is extremely high. Penetration rates will approach 100 percent by the end of the decade.
The Gartner report is not public unfortunatly, but when you have the means go and read the rest : Gartner.com
It’s been in the enterprises that use Domino for quite a while now. And with the announcement of Sametime 7.5, the line between internal and external IM will be blurred greatly. And it will be delivered for no additional cost to the companies. I just wish that MS would join in the fun and that we could enjoy the same intercompany communication over IM that we enjoy over email.
Sean—
Sean,
I assume you to have been following Microsoft’s announcements in the RTC field. Cost (or “free” services)is not the driver in this space; it’s functionality, integration, unified communications if you will. Microsoft is joining you can bet on that 😉
The problem isn’t that MS isn’t willing to play. The problem is that you have to pay extra to play with them. It’s like giving a golfer a fee for just showing up, even if he doesn’t make the cut. When a truly federated email environment exists where you can send IMs from any client to any other client, then the corporate customers will truly embrace it. Of course, the federation will need to be able to occur at either the client or server level to allow companies to control IM in the same manner they control email.
Sean—
Sean,
You have a point nhowever you have to respect that IBM and Microsoft *can* have different business models for certain solutions / services.
Adoption *may* be faster when something is free, but that in itself is not a guarantee.
From what I know about the Microsoft Public IM service is that the reason it’s not free is the fact that Microsoft has to pay Yahoo and AOL for the service. IBM may have struck a different deal or is subisdising for whatever reason…