burton group paper on instant messaging, ca. 2002

8/2/2019 Burton Group paper on Instant Messaging, ca. 2002

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e p t h n e l w o r p l a n n r n g s e r v l c e

INNOVATION NOGROWTH N THElNsrnNT essnclNcRnrerv | 22 Fes 002

C o N c L U s l o N :Enterprises should implement IM products and services for tacticaL solutions such ascustomer relationship management and teim-level coordination. In addition, enterprisesshould factor IM into their long-range IT planning horizons and architectural roadmaps. ITprofessionals should evaluate the growing range of commercial IM products and services,many of which include "enterprise-grade" IM features such as premises-based hosting,firewall/proxy support, message arrdlor t;ession encryption, and message logging andarchiving. Ho*"u.., the IM marketplace's furmaturity, volatili[r, and diversity have made itnsky to commit prematurely to any one enl.erprise-grade IM/presence vendor or solution.Open standard.s have been defined only veqz recently and haven't yet been implemented incommercial solutions. Ubiquitous standards;-based IM interoperability is still at least two tothree yearsi n the future.

A N A I - Y S T S :

JnmeS [email protected])T E c H N o L o c Y T g n E A D :CoLLnsoMTtoNSeRvces


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Innovation ndGrowth in the InstantMessaging arket

TneleoFCoNTENTSS y n o p s i s . . . . . . . 5A n a l y s i s . . . . . . . . 6Too Early to Commit to Strategic tM Vendor or Platform . . ...... 7But Not Too Early to Start Enterprise-Level IM Architectural Planning ...........7M arke t I m pac t . . . . . . . . . . . . .Many New Enterpnse-Grade M Products and Serviceson Market . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .Multivendor Interoperabilitv Not'\'et Available.But Standards Have MomentumWide Range of Innovative Ne w IM Products an d Services.............Consumer-Grade IM Services Will Continue to PlayNiche Roles n Enterpr ise. . . . . . . . . .Security Concerns Will Hasten ErLterprise MigrationAway from Consumer ServicesEnterprise IM Platforms Emphasizing Application Integration ............RecommendationsThe DetarlsIM System Archi tectures. . .. . . . . . . . . . .F igure 1: IM System Archi tecture. . . . , . . . . . . .. . . .F igure 2: Cl ient /Server vs. Peer- to-F 'eerM System Archi tectures. . . . . . . . . . . . . - . . . . . .Presence ervrce. . . . . . .F igure 3: PresenceServiceArchi tecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Messaging serviceFigure 4: IM MessagingService [ rchi tecture . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .Client access and presentation servicesFigure 5: IM Client Access and Presentation Service Architecture...............External connection services......Figure 6: IM Multiservice Interotrrerabil ityScenarios ............Directory servicesSecur i ty services. . . . .Management and administration servicesApplication integration interfaces and tools.. ..IM Interoperability StandardsInteroperability wars...SIP for Instant Messaging and Pre,senceLeveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) ....Presence and Availabil ity Manage.ment PAM).........Wireless Vil lage (WV) . ....

I1 01 01 1t 2t 2t 61 8I 91 9202 T22

2626282930303 13234IM Products and Services or the Enterprise Market ...... 35IM features of enterprise messaging and groupware products .... 35

L o t u sS a m e t i m e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6M i c roso f tExchange2OOO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Novel l 's M roadmap .. . . . . . . . .38IM features of Internet-facing collaboration products .................38P2P-or iented M/col laborat ion envi ronme,nts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

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Innovation nd Growth in the InstantMessaging arket

Aslmchronous-oriented IM/collaboration environments ......39Synchronous-oriented IM/collaboration t:nvironments ........ 40Secur i ty-or iented M/col laborat ion envi r


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SvNopsrsEnterprises are starting to integrate instant messagrng (IM) into their collaborationenvironments and other network-based applications, including portals, mobilemessaging, and customer relationship management (CRM). In the business world,IM-and its companion service, presence-is now rega_rdedas one of the mostpromising areas in messaging and collaboration.trnterprise irrformation technologz (IT) professionals should factor IM into ttreir long-range IT planning horizons and architectural roadmaps. At the same time, youshould evaluate enterprise-grade IM solutions as tactical tools to support immediatecollaboration needs. You should investigate the growing range of commercial IMproducts and services, many of which include "enterprise-grade" IM features such aspremises-based hosting, firewall/proxy support, message and/or session encr5,ption,and message loggrng and archiving. Many enterprises are running comparative trialsof several commercial IM products and services, not only for the purpose of decidingwhich solution to invest in, but also to familiarize themselves with associated issuesof security, support, and apphcation integration.However, the IM marketplace's immatu.rity, volatility, and diversity have made it riskyto commit prematurely to any one enterprise-grade IM/presence vendor or solution.Furthermore, all of today's commercial solutions incorporate proprietary IM andpresence protocols. Open, vendor-neutral standards have been dehned only veryrecently and haven't yet been implemented in commercial solutions. A positive sign inthe past year was the progress in stanclards, especially the development of and broadindustry support for the SIP for Instanl. Messaging and Presence kveragrngExtensions (SIMPLE), based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) standard. Inparticular, America Online (AOL) and Microsoft have committed to irnplementingSIMPLE in their products and services. However, Microsoft's Windows XPWorkstation is the only commercial product that implements SIMPLE so far. AOL, forits part, has tested SIMPLE-based interoperability with only a few business partnersand hasn't yet opened its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or ICQ servrces to SIMPLE-based interconnection with third-party products and services. Broad IM industrysupport for SIMPLE interfaces is still at least one to two years in the future, and,considering the many technical and business issues that need to be addressed byvendors and serviceproviders, fu1l SIMPLE-based,multivendor IM/presenceinteroperability is at least two to three llears away.To the extent that you consider consumer-grade IM services in your enterprisestratery, such as AIM and MSN Messenger, it should be to support interoperabrlitywith customers and trading parbrers or to support employees who are using theseservices for remote access to your corporate IM environments. Over time, you shouldphase out corporate usage of free, cons,umer-grade IM services, due to the securityproblems with these services. However', it may not be in your company's bestinterests to tell employees to terminate their existing consumer IM accounts, in cases

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where employees are using these servir:es for legitimate business purposes, if youhaven't yet deployed a viable, in-house, enterprise-grade IM platform. IANnlvsrsInstant messaging (IM) is still not quite a mainstream enterprise collaboration service,but it's on the verge.In thepast ear,henumber ndvariety f enterpnise-gradeM productsndservicesave rownsteadily.Enterprisesandeploy ome f these olutions rr heirpremisesr, asanaltemative,btainhem hroughsubscriptionsr contracts ith outsourcers,arriers, r applicationervice rcvidersASPs). usinesssersare ncreasinglydoptingM solutionsor peer-grnupollaboration,ntemet-facingustomerelationshipmanagement,elf-servicenterpriseo(als,andotherapplications.Nevertheless, many enterprises contimre to keep their distance from commercia,l IMproducts and services for a mixture of r:ultural, economic, and technological reasons.First, IM has not yet attained "killer app" status in the business world, though it's nolonger regarded as an unimportant consumer-oriented service either. IM is cominginto a worldwide business culture t]:at has embraced store-and-forward e-mailservices. Most business users are not e,ager o take on an additional messagingservice-IM-if that service only adds clutter and intern-rptions to their alreadyharried work lives. Indeed, business usiers are payng the price for their dependenceon e-mail, in the form of such maladiesi as inbox glut, spam, and mail-borne viruses.Nevertheless, some business users have found that IM services can help them cutthrough e-mail clutter to push real-time alerts to their immediate colleagues. (Forfurther discussion of mail-bome spain and viruses, and solutions for dealing withtlrem, see the Network Strategg Report, "Policy-Based Message Content Security.")Another reason why enterprises still haven't broadly implemented IM products andservices is the general business slump. Companies have put stringent controls ontheir information technolory [T) budgets and have been careful not to invest tooheavily in immature technologies, such as IM, that lack a clear return on investment(ROI). Meanwhile, many enterprise IT groups have been content to look ttre other waywhile their users obtain free IM serrices from consumer services, such as AOL InstaltMessenger (AIM), ICQ, MSN Messenger,aldYahoo! Messenger, because thisapproach puts no pressure on tight corporate budgets. Still, some enterprises havebegun to invest in IM solutions in call-center, help-desk, and customer self-serrrice,spawning case studies in which ROI can be tied to hard-dollar metrics such asincreases in employee productlity and decreases in cost per transaction.Furthermore, companies have reorganized their busrness and IT priorities in the wakeof the September 1 , 2OOl, terrorist attacks. Companies have placed their focussolidly on securit5r-related projects and solutions. Consequently, IM products andservices, having no clear tie-in to securitlr, have remained far down on the list ofenterprise IT priorities. Indeed, enterpr:ise IT professionals'concerns about the

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security vulnerabilities of commercial IM products and services have been yet anotherreason for talcng a "wait-and-see" approach to this young technologz. The young IMmarket has had to respond to a steady stream of news reports on '"nlnerabilities inAIM, ICQ, and other consumer-grade services. IM product vendors, for their part,recogolze these securilr concerns and have come to market in the past year withsuch enterprise-grade security features as proxy support, session enc4,ption, andmessage ioggtng. Currently, however, rnost enterprise-grade IM products and serviceslack some important security features, including the ability to digrtally sign rnstantmessages and to scan instant file transfers for viruses.

Too Ennlv o CoMMrro SrnRrrclcMVeruooRRPLATFoRMEven for those enterprises tJ at are seriously considering IM solutions, ttre IMmarketplace's immaturity, volatility, arLd diversity have made it risky to commitprematurely to any one vendor or solution. Enterprise IT professionals are stillbringtng themselves up to speed on this new technolory, and the industry's rapidevolution increases the dfficulty of putting one's cognitive "arms" around thetechnologr and market.Nevertheless, enterprises are beginning to regard integration of IM into theircollaboration environments as inevitable. Businesses have started to recognize thepotential roles of IM services within a broad range of network-based applications,including portals, mobile messaging, a:rd customer relationship management (CRM).In the business world, IM-and its companion service, presence-is now regarded asone of the most promising new frontiers in messaging and collaboration. In fact, therecent terrorist attacks highlighted the usefulness of IM services in coordinating real-time emergency response, which is one of the most salient security concerns in ttrisnew cultura,l environment. Increasingll,', we will see wireless IM services supplementcellular-based Short Message Service (SMS) as mission-critical environments for reaL-tirne coordination. For a further discussion of SMS and other mobile applications, seefJte Network Strategy Oueruiews, "Mobile Application Architectures" and "MobileMessagrng." For a further discussion o1'portals, see he Network Strategg Oueruiew,"Building a Strong Portal Foundation."

Bur Nor Too Ennlv o SrARTrureRpnlsE-LEVELIMAncHTEcTUMLlnxxlrucEnterprise IT professionals are begrnni:rg to factor IM into their long-range ITplanning horizons and architectural roiadmaps. They are evaluating variouscommercia,l IM products and services and are trying to define criteria for "enterprise-grade" IM solutions. Many enterprises are running comparative tnals of severalcommercial IM products and services, not only for the purpose of deciding whichsolution to mvest in, but also to famtlnrtze themselves with associated issues ofsecurity, support, and applicatron inteppation.

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As with e-mail infrastructures, enterprises will increasingly see the need to deploy twoor more sepa-rate M tnfrastructures, each suited to a particular role in their e-business environments. At mrnimum, we will see many companies deploy at least twoseparate IM/ presence infrastructures:

Internally facrng I M / pre sence enr.ironment for employee-to-employeecommunications, often integrated with an existing corporate-wide collaborationenvironment such as l,otus Domino or Microsoft ExchalgeExternally facing IM / presence enykonment for company-to-worldcommurrications, often integrated with existing corporate applications suchas portals, CRM, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and supply chainmanagement (SCM)Over the next several years, well see ll\{/presence services pervade the e-businessvalue chain, both internally and extemally. At the same time, these serrriceswillfunction both as collaboration environrnents, enabling people to coordinate in realtime, and as middleware environments ttrat integrate applications throughstructured, instantaneous message interchange. For example, the JabberIM/presence open-source codebase is being adapted by some vendors to serve as amiddleware platform, while other vendors are deployrng Jabber for interpersonalcollaboration.

MRRrervpncrAs weVe noted, the IM market is in the midst of a boom of growth and innovation.Increasingly, new IM products and sen.ices are targeting the business market, whilealso providing gateways and other means of interoperating with the many IMsubscribers hosted by AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, and other consumer-oriented serviceproviders.

MRI.Iy Ew ErurrRpnIsE-GMDEM PnooucTs NDSeRvcesN MARKETIM began as a consumer-side service, trut is rapidly evolving into an enterprise-gradecollaboration environment. Still, milliorrs of business users continue to rely on freeconsumer-grade services from their desktops and/or laptops, a fact that causessecurity concerrrs alnong enterprise IT professionals.WeLl have to regard the IM market as funmature until the day, at least two to threeyears in the future, when it attains the universal, standards-based interoperabilitythat now characteiues the e-mail market. All of today's commercial solutionsincorporate proprietary IM and presence protocols, insofar as open, vendor-neutralstandards have been defined only very recently and haven't yet been implemented incommercial soludons. Commercial solrLtions range widely in protocols, features, andapplication interlace s.

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MulrvrruDoR NTERopEnnBturyor yer Avtrrlgrg,Bur SreruDARDsRveMoverurumone of the most positive signs in the pa.st year has been the progress in IM andpresence standards. Most encouraging has been broad industry support for the SIpfor Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) specification,which is based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)standard. In particular, AOLand Microsoft have committed to implementing SIMPLE in their products andservices, though Microsoft's Windows XP Workstation is the only commercial productthat rmplements SIMPLE so far. when implemented widely, SIMPLE will enablefederated, multidomain, multivendor interoperability alnong diverse IM products andservices, similar to the interoperability we've come to expect from e-mail systems. Asrndicated above, ubiquitous support for SIMPLE-based interoperability is still at leasttwo to three years in the future.SIMPLE is tl-e odds-on favorite to become ubiquitous throughout commercial IMproducts and services by the middle of this decade. SIMPLE's adoption will paralleltJle rise of Internet e-mail interoperabihty around Simple Mail Transport Protocol(SMTP) in the mid-9Os. Indeed, SIMPLIDarrd SIP interfaces will come native in many ifnot most cLient and server operating environments by the middle of this decade. SIPwill provide the core presence environment for IM, chat, multimedia conferencing, IPtelephony, and many other network seryices. Microsoft's incorporation of aSIP/SIMPLE interface in the Windows.KP desktop is a harbinger of this trend.UntiL such tirne as product/service providers offer native SIP/SIMPLE-basedfederated interoperabtlity among multivendor IM presence environments, the marketwill place a premium on solutions that offer server-side gateways to otherIM/presence envkonments, most notably the free consumer services (AIM, ICQ, MSN,Yahool) and their substantial subscriber bases (many of whom are business peopleusing these services rom their desktops, laptops, and/or handhelds).Other IM-related standardization initiatives continue apace, particularly those forpresence infrastructure (Presenceand Availability Management) and wirelessIM/presence (Wireless Village). Like the movement toward SIMPLE, these initiativesbear watchingin 2OO2, but they are much less likely to prevail as ubiquitousstandards due to their narrower support within the industry. Nevertheless, Presenceand Availability Management (PAM) application programming interfaces (APIs) arealready supported in some enterprise-gpade IM solutions. In February 2OO2, theWireless Village 1.0 specifications were released, specifying an IM/presenceenvironment that will operate over Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM),Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), SMS, and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)wireless tranports, as well as over the Web's HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP).By the same token, some standards-Lle initiatives that were important in 2000, suchas the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF's) Instant Messagrng and PresenceProtocol (IMPP)Working Group and the Jabber.org open-source project, have declined



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m irnportance; the IETF did the right thing by creating a SIMPLE Working Group totake responsibility for developing this standard.

WroeRnruceF NNovAmvEEw M Pnooucrs ND envrcesToday's IM market is a proving ground for innovative new solutions. Dozens of new,enterpnse-grade IM products and services have entered the market rr the past year,with the expectation of more to come h 2OO2 and beyond. Many of these offerings arefrom startups. All of them incorporate proprietary IM and presence protocols. Only afew IM/presence solutions integrate to any extent with enterprises'existingmessaging and collaboration environments.The market for enterprise-grade IM/presence solutions has now developed to thepoint at which vendors can be grouped into several distinct segments. One segment isfor IM/presence solutions that come from existrng collaboration software vendors,such as Lotus and Microsoft, and that integrate with those vendors'messaging,calendaring, task management, and other features. Another segment is the new breedof Internet-facing collaboration environments, from vendors such as Groove andMercury Prime, that include IM/preserrce services. Yet another segment consists ofstand-alone IM/presence software environments-from vendors such as Bantu,Ecrio, iPlanet, and Jabber-that provide APIs and software developer's kits (SDKs) forintegrattng witl enterprise portal.s and hne-of-business applications. For furtherdiscussion of Internet-facing collaboration products, see the Nettuork StrategyOuenneu, "Internet-Facing Collaboration Environments."Furthermore, there is a fast-growing assortment of enterprise-grade IM/presenceservices from carriers, outsourcers, and ASPs. In this latter category, much of thegrowth in the IM services market will be in wireless IM/presence services. WirelessIM/presence services run over a variety of transport protocols, including WAP,Genera,lPacket Radio Service (GPRS),and CDMA's IXRTT, and, in some cases,piggrback on cellular carriers' SMS.

CorusumeR-GRADEM SrnvrcEsILLCowruueTo PLAYNICUeROus IN ENTERPRISEHere and now, the consumer-grade IM services continue to report increasingsubscriber counts and to upgrade their features, but none of tlle major services-AiM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo!-has addressed the burgeoning business market head-on (or appears likely to do so in 2OO2\. Consumer-grade services continue to servemillions of business users (with or without official approval and support fromsubscribers'employers). These services also increasingly provide the "on-ramp" bywhich a company's customers access il-s portal-oriented IM/presence environments.For several reasons from a business's point of view, it's not very important whetherAOL ever "unblocks" access by rival consumer-grade services to its AIM and ICQ

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services. Enterprise-grade IM/presence products and seryices generally interoperatevia gateways with each of tJre ndividual consumer-grade services, and don't rely onthese services to route IM and presence information among themselves. In addibon,enterprises'interna-l IM environments largely stand alone from the consumer-gradeservices. Finally, it looks like SIMPLE-trased interoperability-to be supported by AOLand all other product and service providers-will relegate the IM interoperabihty warsof the past few years to the history books (though AOL has been slow to open up rtsclosed IM service to external interconnections).Enterprise-grade IM solutions are starting to converge on a common set of featuresthat address core business requirements in various areas. The criteria for enterpnse-grade solutions include support for flexible hosting, multiclient access, scalability,reliability, performance, security, programming interfaces, external connectivity, andintegration with corporate directory and security environments. In the past year,we've seen the introduction of dozens of new enterprise-grade products and servlcesthat, at a minimum, support desktop and handheld clients, content encr5,ption,message archiving and logging, proxies and firewalls, published APIs, and gateways toconsumer-grade IM and presence services.

SrcuRrw orucrRrusILLHRsrerurureRpnlsElcMTtoN wAyFRoMCoNsumeRERVTcESWhere IM security is concerned, the growing number of commercial IM products andservices support message and/or session enc{ption attests to the importance of thisfeature in the enterprise market. Other security features, such as firewall/proxysupport artd server-side message logging/archiving, are common on ttre market now.In the next several years, other security features-such as message signing andtrmestamping-!1'lll become common as well. However, few current enterprise-gradeIM solutions provide the pubhc key infi'astructure (PKI) and other crypto featuresnecessary to support value-added security. It's likely that the ability to tntegrate wrththird-party PKIs will become a standard feature of enterprise-grade IM environmentsover the next one to two years (though it remains to be seen how many organizationswill implement PKIs for tlle purpose of sending secure instant messages). For a moredetailed discussion of PKI technologies, refer to the Network Strategg Report, "PubLicKey Infrastructure Vendors, Interoperability, and the Market."Enterprises are generally committed to migrating away from consumer-grade serviceswith all deliberate speed. The press regularly reports security problems with AIM,ICQ, MSN, and other consumer-grade services, confrrming what IT professionals hadlong suspected and feared. In 2001, the IM industry became aware of the very realttrreats posed by IM-borne viruses, worms, ald spam, but still hasn't addressed thesethreats adequately through commercial solutions integrated with core products. Weexpect that server-side IM anti-virus and anti-spam solutions will become common inenterprise-grade IM serr-icesover the next one to two yea-rs.Security problems inconsumer-grade IM services will cause maly enterprises to shut their firewalls tothese protocols. To ttre extent that enterprises need to interface to consumer-grade

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lnnovation nd Growth in the InstantMessaging arket

IM services (such as from CRM and portal products), enterprises will deploy server-side IM gateways within the Demilitar2edZnne (DMZ) to interface to these externalservices, and will filter this traffic for viruses and other rogue code.

ErrenpnrseM PnrFoRMs mpHRslzlNGppucAloN INTEGMTIoNPublished APIs will also become a critical feature in IM/presence products, especiallyas companies seek to support presence-based user interaction from their portals,help desks, call centers, and CRM applications. In these outward-facing rntegrationscenarios, IM/presence services will deliver a personalized, real-time quality ofexperience for employees, customers, and trading pa-rtners. By the end of this decade,IM/presence will become one of the preferred environments for user self-service viaportals and websites, distinguishing itself from standard Web browsing by offeringreal-time text-based interaction with a live human being. Similarly, IM clients willprovide the "command-line rnterface" of the online economy, enablng quickquery/response interaction with data repositories and transaction-processingsystems of all sorts.Commercial enterprise-grade IM solutions began to converge in 2001 around acommon architectural approach. Increasingly, enterprise-grade IM/presence softwareconsists of modular components supportrng all of the following functional services:presence, messaging service, client access and presentation, external connection,directory, securi$r services, management and administration services, and applicationintegration. As the IM market develops, weLl see many formerly lM-specific services orinfrastructures-such as presence-integrated into operating systems, unifiedmessaglng systems, voice over IP (VoIP)services, and other application environments.By the end of this decade, most users will experience IM and presence as serrricesembedded in the basic fabric of Web services environments. IM's growing adoption inthe business world will increase demands on platform vendors to build it into theunderlying middleware environment for Web services and e-business.

RecomvENDATIoNSIn the near term, enterprises should consider implementing IM products and servicesfor tactical applications, such as team-level coordination and customer relationshipmanagement. However, you should defer deeper enterprise commitments to andinvestments in IM technologies until the industry has a broader foundation of openstandards. For enterprises, the technical risks of premature commitment to aparticular IM product or service are considerable. Users want to lanow whether theyshould commit to vendor-proprietary IM products/services or wait for standards-based offerings to emerge.Enterprises should evaluate IM vendors and solutions on such criteria as a productor service's maturitlr, functionality, cost-effectiveness, securitlz, programming

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interfaces, bundled applications, integration with existing e-mail and collaborationinfrastructures, and connections with external IM/presence product and serviceenvironments.You need to determine to what extent your organization's IM requirements coincidewith the principal "enterprise-grade IM" criteria-most important, secunty featuressuch as firewall/proxy support, message or session enc4,ption, and messagearchiving and loggrng. These security features are especially critical if you're in aregulated industry (such as financial services or health care) and you need to ensureconfidentiality of IM traffic while retarning IM/chat logs for legal purposes.You should also assess whether you need IM solutions tlrat are both internally facrng(for employee-to-employee communication) and externally facrng (for employee-to-world and employee-to-trading-partner communication).If you use l,otus Domino and are looking for an internally facing IM/presenceproduct, it would make sense to evaluate Lotus Sametime. Likewise, if you useMicrosoft Exchange, you should consider migrating to Exchange 2000 to takeadvantage of its integrated IM/presence features. However, be aware that anenterprise-wide migration to Exchange 2000 can prove to be a tirne-consuming,expensive, and complex undertaking, insofar as it involves parallel migrations toWindows 2000 and Active Directory throughout your organization. (For furtherdiscussion of Exchange 2000, refer to the Network Strategy Report, "MicrosoftExchange 2000"). If you're a Novell user, you should loeow that tJ.e vendor hascommitted to releasing an IM product by the end of 2OO2.If your primary interest is in providing an IM-enabled collaboration environmentseparate from your existing groupware platform, you should consider any of theInternet-facing collaboration products from such vendors as Endeavors Technologr,Eyeball, Groove, Ikimbo, LINQware, Mercury Prime, NetWin, Peoplelink, and 2WAy.In this category, we also include enterprise groupware vendors lntus (which providesan Intemet-facing QuickPlace product that can be Sametime-enabled) and iPlanet(which provides its iPlanet Portal Server Instalt Collaboration Pack that is integratednot only with that vendor's portal product, but also with its messaging, calendaring,and other collaboration server software oflerings).These products differ widely, and your choice of one over another may hinge on onevendor's value-added security features, for example, or support for a particularwireless client or integration with VoIP services. Generally, ttrese products are best forInternet-facing collaboration among distributed project teams within and amongcompanles.If what you want is an IM environment (internal or external) without a broad rangeof other collaboration services, you should consider implementing software offeringsfrom such vendors as All Instant, Bantu, Ecrio, F\paper, and Jabber. Generally,these products are most appropriate if you're planning to roll out scalable IM and

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presence services that integrate with your enterprise portal, CRM, ERp, ald other e-business appLications. These vendors primarily position their products into the carriermarket, and their offerings are also appropriate for enterprises that plan to scale uptheir IM/presence services to support high tralhc volumes.As you implement IM/presence serrrices with your enterprise applications, youllrncreasingly consider new ways to use the technologr. Over time, youll want toexplore using IM/presence to push application-generated alerts and other rea-l-timemessages to users (employees, customers, and trading partners) and to otherapplications. You should consider the advantages and disadvantages of IM for that"alerting service" role with respect to such altematives as e-mail, SMS, two-waypagng, and voice mail. To give yourselves the flexibility to issue IM-based alerts fromexisting applications, choose solutions that offer prepackaged or programmableintegration with external applications by means of vendor-provided APIs and SDKs.As your enterprise builds support for mobile clients into its application architecture,youll find that wireless IM, and related services such as SMS, are the quickest and.most effective means for pushing out real-time alerts. If this scenario soundsattractive for your operational needs, consider implementing wireless-orientedIM/presence products from such vendors as Asia cybemet Limited, Black octopus,Ecrio, Followap, Invertix, MessageVine, MobilelM, Motorola, Odigo, Openwave,TeleCommunication Svstems. and Wiral.The distinction between wireless IM and SMS will blur and eventually disappear.Currently, wireless IM/presence services run various "bearer" transport protocols,including WAP, GPRS, and CDMA's IXRTT. However, some wireless IM products andservices use SMS as the transport protocol for instant messages, presencenotifrcations, and contact-list subscription reque sts.SMS's role in wireless IM products and services will grow, as will SMS's role in networkapplication rnfrastructures rn general. Being implemented in all 2.5G and third-generation (3G) cellular environments, SMS will become the universal alerting andnotification service for the human race, a ubiquitous infrastructure for pushing brief,quick messages in response to events reported by humans, machines, andapplications. Most prernises-based mobile-access gateways and servers already provideinterfaces to SMS. A growing range of vendors has products that enable SMS messagerouting and delivery by carriers and wireless ASPs. Consequently, you should evaluateIM product and service providers'integration with SMS, most notably with SMS in theGSM environment (the most prevalent cellular uairlinli'protocol tn the world).Carrier-provrded or outsourced IM/presence services should remain on your radarscreen. Messaging service providers see IM as a promising new frontier in theirpenetration of the enterprise market, and the range of enterprise-grade IMoutsourcers will continue to grow in coming years. You should assess the degree towhich your enterprise requires flexible IM/presence infrastructure hosting options,such as premises-based versus vendor-hosted versus ASP-hosted versus carrier-

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provided options. Several IM product vendors will license their software for yourinternal deplopnent andlor vendor hosting and management within their round-the-clock data centers. In addition, many IM product vendors target the service providermarket, so they might be able to pornt you to ASPs and carriers who provide access totheir enterprise-grade software on a monthly subscription basis.To the extent that you consider consumer-grade IM services (such as AIM and MSNMessenger) in your enterprise stratery, it should be for the following reasons. First,these and other consumer IM services will remain the primary means by which manycustomers will access your portal-based IM environments, so you should at leastconsider deplo5.rng he server-side gateways to integrate with those services. AIso,many of your current employees are using these services for regular businesscommunications, and it may not be in your company's best interests to tell them totermmate those accounts if you haven't yet deployed a viable in-house IM platform.No matter what size your organization is, you're probably receiving a steady stream ofrequests from employees to open your firewalls to the protocols associated wrth theseconsumer-grade services. Indeed, your enterprise IT staff may have already grantedsome of these requests, and taken others under evaluation pendrng a future decision.As you firm up your enterprise IT strategr, make sure that you involve your perimetersecurity teams in the discussions. Your IT security professionals should be givenmultiple opportunities to discuss all the issues, review commercial options, and figurehow IM and presence traffrc can be securely supported within your emerging webservices environments.IM and presence services are coming to all organizatrons and will pervade all corporateapplication environments. For enterprises, the primary challenge is to identify tacticalIM/presence solutions that provide nea.r-term business payoffs, while at the same timefactoring these technologies into your network and application architectures. EnterpriseIT professionals need to stay ahead of the IM implementation curve. You should beformulating coherent business, architectural, and implementation plans for deplolrngthese senrices throughout your value chain. f

TUEDETAILSInstant messaging (IM) enables a user to detect when someone else is "present" onLine(in other words, connected and available) and then send that person a short, simpletext message for immediate delivery and display. 'I)'pica1ly, IM environments alsoallow the initial message to establish a running "chat" session between the senderand recipient, in which each new message is added to a lengthening online discussionthread that drsplays an on-screen window.IM is similar in some respects to two-way pa$ng services, since it involves immediatetransmission, delivery, and display of short text messages. One might compare IMwith teleconferencing services, which also allow users to estabhsh a closed "peer

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goup" of individuals with whom they communicate in real time. We could a,lsodrawa parallel between IM and traditional host-computing and network operating system(NOS) environments, which often allow users to view who else is logged rn and thensend those individua-ls short text messages that display immediately.IM is not e-mail, though distinctions between the two services are begrnning to blur.IM services involve "live" delivery of messages from the sender to the recipient, anddisplay full message text immediately on ttre recipient's client device or application. E-mail services, on the other hand, may deliver messages instantaneously, but often toa persistent message store rather than direcfly to the recipient's mail client.Consequently, e-mail carries the possibility of "lagged" receipt by the party to which amessage is addressed. It's important to note, however, that some IM solutions havebegun to provide the option of holding messages in a temporarlr message storepending dehvery to a recipient that has momentarily gone oflline (such as in wirelessenvironments subject to signal fading).In practice, however, IM envtonments remain quite distinct from e-mail systems. IMenvironments introduce their own architectures, interfaces, and terminologies intocorporate networking infrastructures. Indeed, many business users are still accessing IMfunctronality on free, Internet-based services such as ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM),Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger Service (in caseswhere corporate firewalls allowIM traffic). These consumer-grade services have built mass famiJian[z with IM technologz,but they lack the hosting, security, application integration, management, and otherfeatures that would qualify an IM offering as truly enterprise-grade.One important ongoing trend is the increasing enterprise adoption of commercial IMproducts for intemal deployrnent. For instance, Lotus and Microsoft provide IMproducts and features that rntegrate with existrng e-mail and collaboration solutionsfrom those vendors. In addition, the range is wrdentng of enterprise-grade IM servicesembedded in Internet-facing collaboration environments, currenfly from such vendorsas Groove, Ikimbo, LINQware, Mercury Prime, NetWin, and 2WAY. And vendors suchas Bantu, Ecrio, Imici, iPlanet, Jabber, MessageVine, Odigo, Openwave, andPeoplelink are providing platform software for enterprise-grade IM/presence serviceshosted by business portals, application service providers (ASPs),and carriers.For the past several years, the IM market has been on a steady upward trajectory ofirurovation and growth. Much of this innovation has focused on vendor development ofenterprise-grade IM and presence products and services. The following discussion looksat three areas of ongoing innovation and development in the IM marketplace: systemarchitectures, interoperability protocols, and enterprise-grade products and services.

IM SySTEMRCHITECTURESWe classi$r an IM/presence solution as enterprise-grade based on the extent to whichit supports the followrng features:

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May be hosted and managed internally by an enterprise and/or externallyby an outsourcer or carrier.May be accessed from two or more different tlpes of client devices, applications,and / or operating environments.Provides the scalability, rehability, and availability necessary to support fast-growrng enterprise IM traffrc volumes without sacrificing performance.Provides message encr5,ption, message logging and archuving, proxy support,privacy protection, and other security features.Integrates with an enterprise's existing messaging, collaboration, directory, andsecunty envjronments.Exposes core functionality through application programmrng rnterfaces (ApIs)andlor software development kits (SDKs).Interoperates with one or more separate IM/presence services.Interoperates with enterprise's existing directory environment throughLightweight Drectory Access Protocol version 3 (LDAPv3) or other standardinterfaces.

An enterprise-grade IM system architecture includes the following componentservices, connectors, interfaces, and tools:

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Presence serviceMessaging serviceClient access and presentation servicetrxtemal connection servicesDirectory servicesSecurity servicesManagement and administration servicesApplication integration interfaces and tools

Figure 1 presents a graphical overview of these principal elements of an IM systemarchitecture. Most commercial enterprise-grade IM products and services rncorporateall of them to varying degrees of functionality.

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Innovation and Growth in the Instant Messaging Market

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Figure Lz IM Sgstem ArchitectureAt a high level, most IM environments conform to one of the following systemarchitectures (presented n Figure 2):

Client/server IM systems manage login, authentication, "subscription" andcontact-list management, "presence"/ status updates, and message routingthrough one or more servers, andPeer-to-peer IM systems support direct client-to-client message routing, butmanage all other functions through one or more servers.

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Innovation ndGrowth in the InstantMessaging arket

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CfisnU$ervsr Pssr q FssrFigure 2: Client/ Seruer us. Peer-to-peer M System ArchitecturesMost IM products and services embody client/server architectures. Client/server IMsystems usually hide client IP addresses, but expose users to the risks of reliance onserver-based infrastructure services. Client/server IM deployrnents often mitigate thesedowntime r,rrlnerabilities by drstributing login, authentication, presence, and messageserver functions across several machines with redundancy, backup, and failoverfeatures. Client/server systems are often easier to manage, maintain, operate, monitorand repair than peer-to-peer topologies. One example of a peer-to-peer solution is theIM/presence functionalrty embedded in Groove Networks'collaboration products.

PnrserucrERVrcEIM environments incorporate a feature that traditronally has been lacking from e-mailsystems: support for real-time client-side awareness of other users' onlineconnectivitSr status, known in IM parlance as "presence" information. Presenceservices expose, update, manage, and control access to user presence and availabilityinformation within an IM environment (ald increasingly provide similar services tonon-IM services such as Intemet telephony and multimedia conferencing). IMsystems detect when a user is present on the Internet, share this presenceinformation with selected other users, and allow those users to then push messagesto present users in real-time. IM systems maintain real-time presence and useravailability information in directories that can support dgramic updates reflective ofusers' come-and-go "online/o{fline" behavior.Figure 3 provides an architectural overview ofpresence services.

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Figure 3: Presence Seruice ArchitecfitreThe most fundamental components in a presence service are "presence user agents"and "presence servers." The presence user agent resides on each client and supportstwo core functions: a "presence entity" and a "presence watcher." The presence entitydetects when that client connects to the network (be it local area network [LAN] orInternet) and then automatically logs into its home presence server to armounce thatthe client is now "present" and available for IM. A presence service may consist of asingle presence server (in centralized IM environments) or multiple, federated,interconnected presence servers running in various networking domains (indecentra i zed IM environments).Presence servers accept, manage, and distribute the client's presence information toother clients that have specific authorization to "watch" (or have "subscribed") to it.Presence entities reglster their presence when they log onto the IM system and sendupdate notifications regularly to their home presence server. Presence servers deliverreaL-time presence updates to authorized presence watchers, encoded in service-specific presence schema formats. Presence watchers track presence information ofother users and provide users with visible and/or audible indicators of tlre presenceof others, often integrated with on-screen "contact lists" (also known as "buddy lists").Presence updates may come to subscribing watchers through regular server-driven"notifications," regular client-driven "polls," or intermittent client-driven "fetches"(such as when someone wishes to send an instant message to another who is, as ofiast notification, appa,rently oflline). Presence schema, notification, lookup, pro>qr,and

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Innovation ndGrowh in the InstantMessaging arket

caching mechanisms are specific to each IM system architecture, reflecting the non-standardized nature of thrs technologr in today,s market.'Ilpically, IM clients must engage in a bilateral, negotiated, request/response,authorization procedure ("subscription") to add each other to their respective contactlists. Under such a procedure, User A sends a formatted message to User B explicitlyrequesting authorization to add User B to User A's contact list. If User B explicitlyapproves the request, then she appears on User A's contact list and User Amay beregarded as "subscribing" to User B's presence information. If User B rejects ttrerequest, she does not appear on User A's list and Use r A is unable to add her. IMsystems maintain these access controls through various Qpes of contact lists, whicha,re managed and enforced at the presence seryer.Any glen user's on-screen contact list (also laeown as a "buddy List") consists of thenalnes of all other users who have placed her on their respective allow lists(subsequent to subscription setup exchanges that involved adding those other usersto her forward list, placing herself on their respective reverse lists, and receivingauthorizations from them all). \picallv, the contact list displays nicknames, aliases,or other terse, user-friendly names chosen by each user, rather than e-marl-likeaddresses. Users may organlzc their onscreen contact name entries into variousgroupings for display pulposes, such as "coworkers," "friend.s,"and,'familv."

MessRctrucERVlcEIM environments immediately forward messages to present recipients and displaythose messages on the recipient's desktop, handheld, or other IM-capable devlce. tfremost fundamental components of an IM messaging service are "messaging useragents" and "messaging servers." A messaging service may consist of a singlemessaglng server (in centralized IM environments) or multiple, federated,interconnected messaging servers running in various networking domains (indecentralized IM envrronments). Figure 4 provides a diagram of an IM messagingservice architecture.


burton group paper on instant messaging, ca. 2002

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