Sun, Yahoo, Microsoft Plan Corporate Instant Messaging Offerings This Spring

Sun will launch a stand-alone, corporate edition of its instant messaging add-on this spring that supports Linux and offers tighter integration with the company's Portal Server, said Jennifer Belissent, senior product marketing manager of Sun ONE Software at the Instant Messaging Planet Conference and Expo here Monday.

The Sun ONE Instant Messaging Server is expected to be launched in April, she said, noting the company's existing instant messaging service is currently available only as an add-on service to Sun ONE Portal Server and runs on Solaris and Windows only.

Yahoo remains on track to launch Yahoo Messenger Enterprise Edition this quarter. At the show, Ken Hickman, director of product strategy for Yahoo Enterprise Solutions, hinted to CRN that the corporate offering will be unveiled in March. Corporations will be able to license the software for in-house use and also integrate with the Web company's well-known instant messaging platform.

Microsoft also plans to roll out its MSN Messenger Connect for Enterprises service for business customers this quarter. In addition, Microsoft said it will launch its realtime communications platform roughly 60 or 90 days after Windows Server 2003 ships in April.

IBM's Lotus, a leader in the realtime communications market, launched its upgraded, enterprise instant messaging offering, SameTime 3.0, last fall.

One of the few systems integrators focused on corporate instant messaging said many customers don't know that they can install instant messaging into their existing infrastructure, but they do know that the lack of interoperability between the leading networks is a big problem.

"Integration of products with AOL AIM is a big question customers ask me all the time," said Doug Garnett-Deakin, vice president of XSystems, Manassas, Va. "It'll be more important over the next couple of years."

At the conference, various executives acknowledged that the lack of interoperability among different instant messaging networks remains an obstacle to corporate deployment but predicted that it will be solved through standards adoption or partnerships within a year or so.

During his keynote, Steve Boom, senior vice president of Yahoo Enterprise Services, said concerns about interoperability, spam, security, scalability and integration are the same issues that plagued widespread adoption of ATM networks and mobile, cellular phones but they will be worked out in the near term. "These are molehills, not mountains," said Boom. "These are just speed bumps."

Boom said corporate use today is limited but increasing awareness about killer instant messaging applications such as realtime multiconferencing, business process collaboration and interactive customer and partner communications will drive significant corporate instant messaging business use in the next few years.

Sun's Belissent also said during a panel later in the morning that there's still a question mark in the minds of customers about interoperability but that development on realtime application sharing, antivirus and spam blockers, as well as tighter integration with existing collaborative and e-mail platforms, are big drivers.

Sun is developing a prototype of another instant messaging-related technology dubbed "rhythm awareness," which would help instant messaging systems automatically predict when users are available or present based on their PC usage patterns.

"It's a very valued technology, advanced," said Belissent, adding that it won't be ready for prime time for at least a few years. "It captures presence data so you can learn about the availability of colleagues. It's a way of enriching the presence information you have."