Is There a Reason to Use Instant Messaging in Business?
Filed under: Instant Messaging (IM), OCS 2007, OCS 2007 R2
Ah ha! I knew it would happen. Sure enough, one of our prospective clients asked us “the” question.
“Instant Messaging? Like AIM and Yahoo? We lose tons of time to those. If this OCS system has IM in it, then we could lose even more productivity!”
(I”m paraphrasing. He was a bit more flustered.)
Danger, Personal Use, Danger!
There’’s a lot of truth in his concern. Instant Messaging can be a distraction to workers. People get sucked into conversations (recall the infamous water cooler), time drains away, nothing gets done…
However, this is really an issue with people interacting. Not the technology they use.
The one technical concern everyone SHOULD worry about is users sending confidential information over IM. OCS has security in place to protect messages. But if an employee IMs a friend outside the company, someone could eavesdrop on that message.
So long as the “no confidential information” rule is respected, there’’s really no reason OCS Instant Messaging can”t be another useful office communication tool. Read more
