The Not-So-Rapid Blog

IM not making great inroads into UK business... »

PHILIP STORRY - JUL 14, 2008 (10:41:43 PM)

Ars Technica has an interesting article on Instant Messaging takeup in UK business.

Basically, it's poor.

It seems that neither SameTime nor Office Communicator have made a compelling case to most businesses - which is a great shame.

The actual report linked to is light on details of products, but does reveal that it's security fears that seem to be putting people off.

The Ars Technica article seems to think that keeping a copy of all IM traffic is mandated in the UK, by the way - very odd. Certainly the first I've heard of it, but maybe this is a misconception that's hampering IM takeup?

This is an area where I think IBM/Lotus should be pushing. I remember trying to sell SameTime within my previous employer, but they just weren't interested.

Which is odd, as they also had Blackberries, which would have integrated. And they had remote offices and plenty of homeworkers. It should have been an easy sell.

Still, this means that the market's wide open. All to play for, IBM!

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Comments: 2

COMMENT: PETER L

JUL 15, 2008 - 09:26:02

comment » It's odd, isn't it? Where I work we use the limited-use version of Sametime in the IT department and we find it invaluable - more immediate than email, less intrusive than phone calls. Like you I've failed to sell it further despite the obvious benefits and in our case I think it's less of an issue of security and more a feeling that it's a facility that will be 'abused'; ie, people will be chatting to their mates all day rather than doing work. Quite why that argument doesn't apply to email as well I don't know ;) «

COMMENT: PHILIP STORRY

JUL 15, 2008 - 10:14:59

comment » I suspect it is a cultural change as much as anything.

The blocker in my last place was senior management. We had a large central office, and they all worked there - they didn't see the benefit for working with regions and home workers.

A fear of abuse is readily dealt with - SameTime itself has a primitive logging system that comes as a demo (STLog.dll, if I recall correctly). It's easy enough to enable, and does the job nicely.

But the combination of cultural shift and fear of abuse is probably the double-whammy that really kills it. However, as the current generation from university gets into the workplace and moves up through the management chain, I'm sure that'll change. «