Welcome to the IM Gold Rush

Wired

September 11, 2002

For Internet businesses, it is a question as old as the medium itself: How do you convince people to pay for something they can already get for free?

Do you offer bells and whistles that don’t come with the free version? Promise to provide real customer service?

Or do you play to users’ fears and explain how free applications leave them vulnerable to gaping holes in IT security?

In the case of instant messaging — one of the latest technologies to hit profiteering Net entrepreneurs’ radar — the answer seems to be all of the above.

In the hopes of convincing companies to expand their use of IM, a growing number of startups and established players are pushing out high-end messaging services for the workplace. Although they’re finding relatively few takers so far, companies presenting at an IM conference in San Francisco are betting such services will eventually become commonplace.

“There’s a reason people don’t use Yahoo e-mail for their corporate e-mail, and eventually it’ll be the same reason they don’t use Yahoo IM for their corporate IM,” said Gaurav Marwaha, product manger at Vayusphere, which makes platforms for companies using instant messaging on computers and wireless devices.

Like other attendees at the Instant Messaging Planet conference held this week, Marwaha believes there is money to be made offering services that add behind-the-firewall security, encryption and greater control at the company level to IM platforms.

Just how much money — and by whom — is the question.

Read the full article at Wired News.