The Sikh Geek

I was thinking about this issue yesterday as I started using MSN Messenger again to talk to friends and family. Then I started wondering about its use in Business. I know a lot of people use it for communicating with friends and family. I then saw this article on The Register about US Brokerage firms adopting IM mainly based on AIM (America Online’s Instant Messenger). There seemed to be some unease from the Regulatory authorities about IM but they couldn’t quite articulate what they are not happy about. They haven’t banned its use, but just said that appropriate ‘records’ should be kept.

We happily use it for personal communication but we have that slightly queezy feeling when considering it for business use. In terms of security it is no less secure than email as email traffic is not encrypted in any way. We can open attachments in emails to spread viruses and worms. Conversations can be logged and archived as well in most Instant Messenging systems. May be the real reason for not using it in small businesses, is that we are afraid that employees will just spend the whole day talking to friends, family and colleagues about non-work issues. Well, I guess this already happens with email!

IM has long been a core component of corporate messaging platforms such as IBM’s Lotus Notes/Domino and they swear by it! May be small businesses need to consider whether IM might be useful in their day to day communications? What do you think?