AOL, the market giant of consumer-based instant messaging, just released AIM Pro for the business user market. The IM tool enables chat, voice and video communication as well as desktop sharing between registered users. And, like the original consumer version, it's free.

Many business users have already adopted IM as part of their personal communication suite, but often against the advice of corporate information systems departments. IS managers have pointed to well-documented security issues including viruses and lack of encryption for sensitive business conversations. The new version claims to plug these holes with SSL encryption and automatic virus scanning, while appealing to business users' convenience demands by integrating with Microsoft Outlook's email and calendar functionality, and WebEx's collaboration tools.

According to the July 19, 2006 article in Red Herring, "AOL AIMs at Corporate Crowd",

"With the launch of AIM Pro, AOL is positioning itself to give Microsoft’s soon-to-be-released Office Live a run for its money. AOL also said that in the future a more robust, paid version would rival Microsoft Live Communications Server and IBM’s Lotus Sametime. "

Will this be the tool that finally brings down the barriers to real-time collaboration in the enterprise? IS will have to respond to the grass roots demand from business users with a better answer than "we don't have enough bandwidth".

4:39:16 PM    
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