[LINK] Lotus, Microsoft, AOL prepare IM for enterprise

[Jan Whitaker]

At 02:45 PM 1/10/02 +1000, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> > instant messaging, as well as presence-awareness technology,
>                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Yeah. Because IM only works as "a real business application" if you know the
>person you want is at the screen. Otherwise, imagine the process:
>[Instant Message to RC] - get no response
>[Phone RC] - phone diverts to mobile
>[RC Answers Mobile] - "Hey, are you near your desk? I just sent you an
>instant message..."

The presence awareness bit is critical to avoid the situation you 
describe.  Anyone ever use AOL's messenger service where they talk about 
your buddies?  I wasn't too keen on having a commercial system, AOL, know 
when or where I was connected to the net. Didn't give me a feeling of 
security.  But the 'who's here' list of your own identified buddies at 
least gave some indication.  It certainly should be a choice as to whether 
it is known you are on or not, supporting Jeff's original concerns over 
employer big-brotherism.

On the other hand, I participated in an online conference a few weeks ago 
that had a 'who's here' list so you could instant message.  There were 
frustrations of not being able to see the full list, only the first 10 or 
so [think about the size of a list in a large corporation!], not being able 
to keep a record of the IM sent unlike email, and still relying on the 
person at the other end seeing that a message had arrived for 
them.  Otherwise it was just a cut down versioin of email without all the 
benefits.

Other approaches like live chat software does take coordination, just like 
a teleconference.  And if it is sophisticated enough, you can get a 
transcript out of the system.  EFA used to use a chat service for board 
meetings and it worked reasonably well for a whole lot cheaper than phone 
conferencing for a group that was keyboard skilled.

I'm also across another system that has other components of group 
facilitation built in that allows multiple people to see what others are 
entering on up to some unfeasible number of screens like 64 [maybe not that 
high, but so high you can't read all the screens].  It's got promise if 
used properly and we're working on whether it is acceptable for online 
education applications.

So I guess what I'm saying is that like any technology, there are upsides 
and downsides, and it isn't until you examine the environment and the goals 
of the activity that you can find out if it's the right choice for the job.

Cheers,
Jan


JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@primenet.com  --  http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm


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