Corporations embrace IM, hope for streamlining

From...

February 21, 2001
Web posted at: 10:18 a.m. EST (1518 GMT)

by Aaron Pressman

(IDG) -- When Adm. Gerald Hoewing took the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis to the Pacific Ocean for a six-month tour of duty last year, he followed an old Navy custom known as the fireside chat. Each night after dinner, Hoewing debriefed the commanding officers of the ships in his battle group.

But while Hoewing honored the Navy tradition, he did it in a nontraditional way. Instead of talking by radio, as commanders have done for decades, the admiral and his captains sat at personal computers and conducted their conversations using Lotus instant-messaging software running over an encrypted satellite link. Navy brass were so impressed that they ordered similar setups for every ship at sea. By this summer, everyone from ensigns to admirals will be using instant messaging to communicate within ships, across the Navy and even back to the Pentagon in Washington.

IDG.net INFOCENTER The Standard's Main Page The Standard's Commerce News Sign up for daily news from The Standard The Standard's Company Research Related IDG.net Stories Asia Internet users look beyond the Web Gates seeks feds help in clash over instant messaging IETF split on instant-messaging standard Features How to get discovered on the Web What broadband revolution? Napster won't remain the same Visit an IDG site Choose a site: IDG.net CIO Computerworld Darwin Dummies.com GamePro.com The Industry Standard ITWorld.com InfoWorld.com JavaWorld LinuxWorld Macworld Online Network World Fusion PC World Publish.com SunWorld IDG.net search

"Instant messaging has allowed us to keep our crew members on the same page at the same time," says Lt. Cmdr. Mike Houston, who oversees the communications program. "Lives are at stake in real time, and we're seeing a new level of communication and readiness."

Not long ago, instant messaging was the communications mode of choice for chatty teenagers. Now the simple application that allows real-time exchange of short text messages has found more grown-up pursuits in government and corporate offices. But instant messaging won't become a truly mass medium until it clears one hurdle: compatibility. Right now, there is no standard for instant messaging. And with business use on the rise, the industry and regulators are under increasing pressure to solve this problem.

Dozens of companies offer instant messaging, and they all speak different languages. America Online, Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) are the free-messaging leaders; just to complicate matters, AOL has two systems, AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ -- and they're incompatible. Along with Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Lotus, Microsoft also sells more complex systems for corporate use. AOL Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.

Small businesses tend to use the free services to converse with employees, customers and suppliers. At political consulting firm Mindshare Internet Campaigns in Washington, CTO Shabbir Safdar uses ICQ to communicate with his company's dozen employees and their clients. "You get to drop all the time-consuming protocols of telephone conversations without breaking the politeness barrier," he says.

Larger enterprises, like the Navy, are relying on the bigger corporate programs that give them greater control over users and tighter security to keep out eavesdroppers. Retailer Lands' End (LE) has fitted its Web site with browser-based messaging from Cisco to let customers chat directly with company reps.

At Shaw Pittman, a large multinational law firm, its 400 attorneys use software from Lotus to consult with each other and clients. They even use it during conference calls between the firm's clients and opposing parties. Partner Jim Alberg says the software lets him, in effect, slip notes under the table to his clients on a call even when they are in different cities. "It might be a hint about a negotiation, or 'I can't believe how stupid this guy is,'" Alberg adds.

But if he wants to send an instant message to co-counsel at another firm, Alberg's out of luck unless the colleague uses the same service.

More than 53 million people in the United States used free instant messaging from home in January, while about 11 million sent messages from work. (These numbers include some double counting of people who use more than one messaging service, according to market research firm Media Metrix.)

So pressing is the need to standardize instant messaging that former Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard, who stepped down in January, abandoned his long-held position that the government should refrain from regulating the Internet. "I think it's going to force policymakers to think differently about this mantra that we've all been saying ö hands off the Internet," he says.

The FCC's new chairman, Michael Powell, is unlikely to heed that advice, though. Powell has yet to comment on instant messaging, but he has already expressed strong skepticism about imposing government rules on free markets. "I have no confidence that either I, personally, or this institution has the foresight and the understanding to be sufficiently accurate in its predictions about how technology or markets are going to unfold to actually try to participate in engineering where they go," Powell told reporters recently in his first public statement since becoming FCC chief. Powell's bear hug of the free market surprised some consumer groups, which expected he would continue the moderate approach he took as an FCC commissioner.

That's good news for America Online, which operates the largest instant-messaging service and which has long refused to allow messages to flow between its subscribers and those of most competing services. When the FCC approved AOL's merger with Time Warner in January, the commission allowed the company to continue to block users of other services. Only if AOL Time Warner (AOL) puts multimedia content (like a CNN video feed) on instant messaging must AOL open the service to competitors.

For the time being, AOL Time Warner's competitors aren't counting on the government to set standards for instant messaging. "The FCC would take 18 months, and antitrust is very slow, too. Neither one of those will be very quick in forcing this company to play nice," says a lobbyist for one of AOL's competitors who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

America Online executives have pledged to open their service once security standards are set. But the competition, including AT&T (T), Microsoft and Yahoo, has banded together to establish industrywide standards that could push AOL to act sooner rather than later. Once the leading non-AOL services allow message exchange, they hope the pressure on AOL will prove irresistible.

Yahoo U.K. restricts access to U.S. adult chat
February 14, 2001
AOL rivals team on IM interoperability
February 9, 2001
Task force moves toward making IM systems work together
December 22, 2000
IETF split on instant messaging standard
December 20, 2000
Instant messaging
November 4, 2000
AOL tests linking of instant messenger services
September 27, 2000

Asia Internet users look beyond the Web
(IDG.net)
Gates seeks feds help in clash over instant messaging
(InfoWorld.com)
IETF split on instant-messaging standard
(Network World Fusion)
P2P, to be or not to be
(IDC)
Bank spins off in-house IM software
(Computerworld)
The coolest kind of collaboration
(Network World Fusion)
Lock up your content
(The Industry Standard)

Mindshare Internet Campaigns
The Federal Communications Commission

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.