Locking, logging and linking: What's coming in Office 12

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• Security

Ina Fried CNET News

Published: 24 May 2005 15:11 BST

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But Greifeld said Microsoft has to deal with the fact that changing the rules can change the medium. Once you start logging instant messages, it's not the same tool it was.

"What happened is the dynamic of IM changed when people knew it was being logged," Greifeld said. But both Capossela and Greifeld said that the change is not necessarily a bad thing.

"For us, the value of IM isn't the sideshow where people get to have private conversations," Capossela said. "The value of IM is the ability to connect with somebody absolutely real-time and to have that quick burst back and forth."

Capossela pointed to IM today as "going through the normal growing pains" in the transition from social phenomenon to useful business tool. "It's not about instant messaging your friends. It's not about instant messaging people to have a conversation that is completely private. That's not going to be how those tools are used five years from now."

Rather, he said, the medium itself will shift, just as email and Web browsing evolved once they became mainstream business tools.

Gartner's Austin tried to make the case that, despite the recent shift to increased regulation, the ultimate trend in technology will be toward the democratisation of information with less central control. However, that idea was shot down by both Greifeld and Ozzie.

Ozzie said that if a technology is to be successful, it needs to meet both the needs of the individuals using the product as well as the company's overall goals. Many a company, he said, has deployed a sales force automation tool that it thought would have great benefits, only to find that no one used it because it was too difficult.

While its main purpose for the meeting at the CEO Summit was to get feedback on its "new world of work" idea, Microsoft may have also made a sale for its collaboration technology.

Greifeld indicated during the meeting that were Nasdaq to launch a new acquisition bid, it might want its partners to have tools like Microsoft's at their disposal. Later in the day, Greifeld said in an interview that he had "already made some phone calls on that".

"We are going to definitely look at it," he said, stressing that it might be a while before Nasdaq has another acquisition to deal with. The company already has plenty on its plate with its plans to buy the Instinet electronic stock exchange. "There are definitely no deals in the works. We are concentrated on making this one happen."

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