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The most popular reason cited by companies to
deploy enterprise IM is to increase intra-office
communication. Interestingly, this rationale for
IM use is cited more than the goal of reducing
long-distance phone charges. Despite the fact that
IM would seem to be a more logical tool for
reaching remote workers and other offsite contacts
than for employees that can interact in person,
more companies see it as a tool to increase the
interaction capabilities of onsite workers.
Radicati predicts that the number of enterprise IM
users worldwide will quadruple by 2008, comprising
80% of enterprise workers -- up from 20% in 2004.
IM is already used in 85% of all enterprises in
North America. These numbers include both personal
and business use of IM while at work.
By 2008, there will be 670 million IM users
worldwide, most of them (88%) operating through
public IM networks, the rest through closed
enterprise systems. IM is an unusual technology in
that in a number of cases, it became a tool for
companies by accident. Employees who used IM
elsewhere, be it through AOL or in college, and
installed it on their machines at their new job.
Companies were faced with a choice of either
banning the application or finding a way to work
with it. Apparently, the latter approach has won
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