April 5, 2006

Verizon Business Instant Messaging

Instant Messaging is a serious business tool that can make it faster and more efficient to communicate internally or with customers. However, it makes no sense to do it if it's not secure. In many industries, it's not a matter of "if" it's secure but the government mandates that it indeed be secure.

Verizon issued a press release today that reads - Verizon Business, a premier provider of advanced global communications and information technology (IT) solutions, today announced the launch of its Hosted Secure Instant Messaging (IM) Service to enable real-time collaboration and communications in the workplace that meets enterprise needs for security and usage management. An application that initially rose to popularity among consumers, IM is now helping business and government customers increase productivity and enhance communications among employees, vendors and partners.

With Hosted Secure IM, companies can enjoy the advantages of IM while leveraging Verizon Business' application-management expertise and robust infrastructure to maintain security and technology levels. Customers also will be able to better manage employee use of IM, including enforcing ethics policies and appropriate communications rules.

A key feature of this new offering enables companies to help stop Internet-based threats such as worms, viruses and spim (unsolicited chat messages from unknown users) before they enter a company's network in a way that consumer-focused IM applications do not. Until now, businesses have had few options for managing and protecting their networks from security threats associated with IM systems.

"Verizon Business is helping companies transform their businesses with IP solutions like Hosted Secure IM," said Ed McGuinness, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of Verizon Business. "With our one-of-a-kind offering, we are making IM a viable tool for the enterprise, while extending our collaboration and communications platform to deliver integrated IP applications with enhanced functionality for end-users."

Industry experts are finding an increasing number of companies are adding IM as a tool for facilitating enhanced communications in the workplace. According to a December 2005 Gartner "Forecast: Business Use of Instant Messaging, Worldwide, 2005-2009" report, the enterprise IM market is projected to have a compound annual growth rate of approximately 20 percent through 2009, and by 2010, 90 percent of users with business e-mail accounts will have IT-controlled IM accounts.

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