Business IM:
Secure instant messaging for business has arrived

IM or Instant Messaging has found its way onto the business desktop and, for many organizations, has become as important a part of business communications as email. However, like its email counterpart, IM has been subject to problems with virus and worm infection that can move from the Instant Message to the desktop. There must be a way to secure this valuable tool.

Birth of IM
Instant Messaging owes its start to Internet Relay Chat or IRC. This peer-to-peer network of ‘chatting’ has been around for quite a while. It is also one of the most exploited ways to infect a system with a virus or worm. IRC was originally written by Jarkko Oikarinen (jto@tolsun.oulu.fi) in 1988 in Finland. It has been used in more than 60 countries around the world and gained international fame during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and during the coup against Boris Yeltsin in September 1993.

Major IM players
Just as with the ISP market, the IM players are the usual suspects. America Online, MSN and Yahoo! have all tested the waters and have a very successful share of the marketplace. As anyone can tell you, there have been virus and worm infections related to these IM clients and the advent of SPAM Instant Messages is now also a reality. Each of these clients has provided provisions for blocking IM messages to people, but the end result, just like SPAM Email, is they change their name and are at it again. Interconnectivity has also long been an issue. If you were on one IM system, you could not connect or IM a user on another service. MSN and Yahoo! announced that connectivity in July 2006 and others have worked on it too. Connectivity options from Cerulean Studios (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com ) include their Trillian™ product, a chat client that supports simultaneous connections to AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. Still, these solutions were not designed for business and like so many times, business used them but experienced the problems and shortcomings inherent with those products, chiefly among then the lack of connectivity options and security that business users needed

Professional IM
In July, 2006, American Online introduced AIM Pro. Touting the product as advanced communications for business professionals, The product has made businesses and in particular the IT Departments at those businesses take notice. AIM Pro offers Microsoft Outlook Client integration, allowing the user to get IMs, calendar events, and send email in one convenient place. It also includes Business-Grade Security. AIM Pro uses encrypted communications ands allows access to One-Click WebEx meetings. Yes, I said WebEx. AIM Pro has technology licensed from WebEx, the world leader in electronic meeting and collaboration software. The AIM Pro client goes one step further. If your company has WebEx and you have an assigned WebEx account, you can integrate this client with all the features you have with WebEx. You can easily show presentations, manage effective web meetings and even desktop sharing. If you or your client has a sound card, microphone and camera, AIM Pro’s Enhanced Voice and Video Conferencing lets you conduct face-to-face meetings with clients and colleagues anytime, anyplace, and that makes your budget go further by allowing secure with voice communications over the Internet. If you have an existing America Online Instant Messaging username, you can just login to the new client. Your "buddy list" will import as well. In a press release dated February 2006, WebEx stated that "Businesses and individuals looking for a secure instant messaging (IM) solution will soon have access to an innovative on-demand service that includes unparalleled collaboration capabilities. AOL and WebEx Communications (Nasdaq: WEBX), the leading provider of on-demand collaborative business applications, have teamed to create a secure, feature-rich version of the popular AIM service for businesses and at-work instant messaging users."

According to The Radicati Group, Inc., instant messaging has become a mission-critical collaboration tool for an estimated 135 million workers in organizations of all sizes, and is projected to grow to more than 477 million by 2009. Many of these users rely on consumer products such as AOL’s industry leading AIM service, the nation’s largest online community.

How can I get more information on this subject?
You can go directly to the source, http://aimpro.premiumservices.aol.com/index.html and see the information on the site and download the client. Additional articles on the subject can also be found at the eWeek site http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9001864&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1 and at the Washington Business Journal site at the following URL http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2006/07/17/daily35.html?hbx=e_abd, to name two. If you have questions or comments about this article, contact me.
 

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This page last edited on Tuesday, March 09, 2010