IM Most Valuable (Web 2.0?) Tool for Enterprise
2007-08-08 00:04:35 by Fabio FornoThe taste of this report is as sweet as honey for businesses based on Instant Messaging: IM seems to be the most valuable (Web 2.0) tool for enterprise.
There is only the doubt about the perception of Web 2.0 among people and also among so called experts. Take a look at the report summarized by the picture below. Is IM web 2.0? IM was out when the web could be labeled 1.0, and IM is not web service, at least in its origins. And also some of the other services (RSS, Wikis) were out before all the buzz about Web 2.0...
We think there are mainly three approaches for defining Web 2.0 applications:
- technological point of view: anything based on Ajax or its evolution named Comet (server push)
- users' point of view: anything enabling realtime sharing of data and collaboration
- businesses' point of view: anything making users spending more time on a website
Here at Bluendo we are happy to read that IM is already perceived as service bringing value to enterprise, but we think that there is still lack of comprehension of the real opportunities that it may offer. In the traditional business IM is just a tool for improving the effectiveness of communication, with an interaction paradigm that is less intrusive and interrupting than phone and more immediate then email. Some others related services such as file transfers (but how many really works?) and whiteboarding may be taken in account, but that's not enough.
IM is just not a tool such as RSS or wikis, IM and Presence may become the real backbone for Web 2.0. If you take a look at the three points of view above, you may discover that in common they have Presence: in order to effectively deliver data you need an infrastructure which resembles more to an IM server than to a web application server; for sharing data with others in real time you need instant messaging and enhanced presence (don't waste time checking, let others publish and the events come to you); and, finally, with the integration of presence based services, you transform your site into a console that users keep open for communicating, sharing and working.
The window of GMail is a great example of this concept: within a single web page you manage all your mail and you can communicate with others using Google Talk. The challenge we have taken at Bluendo is to free presence based services, and allow Web 2.0 developers adding them to their sites with simple and customizable widgets.
