Enterprises get the Instant Message
Published: 08 Oct 2003 12:25 BST
Instant Messaging is one of the great undeveloped applications of the Net. In use by millions of people at work and at home, it remains much the same as its anarchistic antecedent, Internet Relay Chat. Yet American company IMLogic, headed up by ex-Microsoft real-time collaboration honcho Francis deSouza, is betting its future on the idea that IM can be turned into a buttoned-down, spiffed-up enterprise service. Last year, the company announced a major deal with Reuters Messaging, an enterprise-class IM system, and the collusion continues to grow.
We talked to deSouza about what IMLogic is up to, what's going on in the world of IM and what's going to happen next.
Why has IM remained such a minority interest in the market, when so many people use it so often?
All the growth has been in different silos; products unable to connect to each other. There were technical reasons -- everyone using different protocols -- and security concerns. Everyone's worried that someone from outside their user base could connect and bring down a server. And the business models don't mesh. Compared to email, where servers connect and disconnect rapidly, an IM connection is closer to a phone model, where it needs permanent resources at both ends for the duration of the connection. How do different companies get compensated for users coming in from other networks?
But this is something the phone companies sorted out a while ago...
Yes, the solution we have is very similar in concept to SS7 [Signalling System 7, the protocol that connects phone companies' networks together for signalling and billing]. So we're starting to come up with a solution for the business model. IMLogic provides the background logic to interconnect -- this is the first time we have connectivity to all the players.
So what difference will that make to users?
The single biggest difference will be connection across networks. You sign on with Reuters and we register you across all the networks. They all have their own domain systems, all separate from each other, and we handle all that.
Doesn't Trillian [a multi-system chat client] connect across multiple networks?
It works until they change the systems, so it goes for a week or so and then you have to download another patch. IMLogic is a certified partner of the IM networks and we keep our connections.
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