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Instant Messaging: the New Email (part 2)?

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Companies are appreciating the immediacy of communication via Instant Messaging or IM. While this technology was first thought of as more for personal uses—such as kids chatting with friends, or long-distance lovers chatting and video-conferencing—the business implications have been quick to sink in. Managers could talk to staff in immediacy, whether the latter is in the same building or in another country. Virtual conferences can be held, where more people can join in on the discussion. And IM allows for multiple conversations at the same time, so one can be talking to a client or a colleague, while checking information with another one on a different IM session.



Companies are still looking into the return on investment for establishing IM networks of their own. However, the costs might be considered negligible, since these are usually packaged with corporate email exchange and collaborative software installations. Or if need be, companies can resort to publicly-available IM networks.

UK behind in data protection

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According to a survey conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry among 1,000 respondents, UK companies are falling short in terms of protecting data. The DTI has thus expressed concern about this, in light of the increasing level of e-commerce activities and business conducted online. The risk of client data and proprietary company information being stolen continues to be very high.

According to the study, most large companies take an active role in securing data and customer information that it has. However, most smaller companies do not have such a proactive stance on network and data protection.

The most vulnerable, in this case, would be the companies that accept financial transactions online. Information such as credit card numbers and client contact information and addresses are potential targets by hackers. Among the companies that accepted online financial transactions, more than one third did not encrypt their data transmissions and databases. And among companies that use voice-over-internet protocol for voice calls, half did not consider possible security risks.

Instant Messaging as a tool for business communications: the cons

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We previously wrote on how businesses are adopting instant messaging to complement or even sometimes replace their existing email services as preferred communication means by companies. Yes, it’s great—you get instant feedback from your corresponded; it’s as if you’re talking on the phone rather than writing and sending letters back and forth.

Instant messaging is great, and is beneficial for those who want quick communications. But of course, there are also disadvantages to using IM for business needs and for inter-office communications.

Privacy – Unless you set your IM client to say you’re invisible or busy, most IM clients would display you as online, and might be a hindrance to your productivity if someone keeps on calling and calling

Logging – Not all IM clients have built-in logging features. So if your client’s one of them (usually the older ones), you won’t be able to keep conversations for the record, unless you manually copy and paste, or hit the “Save as” button.

Productivity – IM may prove to be a nuisance to workers who are trying to concentrate. Of course it’s difficult to concentrate if some IM window keeps popping up every now and then containing messages from people you’d rather not talk to right now.

Iceland tops world broadband penetration rate

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According to research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Iceland is the country with the highest broadband penetration rate, topping even South Korea, which is usually considered the country with the highest concentration of broadband users. Iceland has 26.7 percent of Internet users on Broadband, while South Korea has 25%.

The UK ranked twelfth, with a broadband penetration rate of just 15.9%, just behind the USA, with 16.8%. However, in terms of the number of broadband users, the US leads the pack with 49 million in all.

Broadband penetration is correlated with a higher likelihood of people conducting business online, especially through e-commerce portals. Faster connections mean faster transaction turnovers, better sales, and higher revenues. This extends to non-traditional means of accessing broadband, such as via mobile networks that support high-speed multimedia and mobile-commerce services. For instance, Japan and South Korea are at the forefront of mobile-commerce, with users being able to do just about any type of commercial and business transaction via their mobile phones. This is also fast catching on in Europe, particularly the UK and the Nordic countries.

Instant Messaging: the New Email?

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A decade ago, the use of email for business correspondence was unheard of . Companies were still using fax machines to transmit official messages and informal inquiries to other companies, whether within the vicinity or across continents. Offices used paper-based inter-office memoranda to communicate among staff and departments within the same company. Of course, there were disadvantages to this, including issues in timeliness of message arrival (or circulation) and costs (such as long-distance phone calls).

The advent of email changed all that, as messages got more speedily delivered and the response could be received as quickly, too. There were also cost advantages—even with the infrastructure being initially expensive at the early days of adoption, the per-message cost was close to zero.

Instant messaging was a technology developed almost the same time as email. The difference, as the name suggests, is that communication through IM has more of an instant nature, than email which is akin to sending a written letter. But what are the implications to businesses?