SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - When a technical glitch arises at a Carl's Jr. restaurant and the corporate help desk can't offer an immediate fix, a flurry of instant messages blankets the company's technical team. And answers can fly back faster than an order of fries.
Carl's Jr. uses a business-grade version of America Online Inc.'s Instant Messenger, deployed just eight months ago, that has managed to reduce response times dramatically. And that means more hungry customers fed in the shortest time possible.
"We could have set up phones that would be ringing all over God's creation in hopes that somebody might pick up," said Jeff Chasney, chief information officer at CKE Restaurants Inc. "That didn't make sense."
No longer are flash messages over the Internet just about teen gossip. Businesses are grasping the value of instant communication that's faster than e-mail and cheaper than phone calls.
AOL and other companies that run consumer messaging networks now see an opportunity in persuading business to pay for such software - and not the simple versions that employees download for free, often without asking the boss.
New messaging products geared toward the cubicle class mesh instant messages with business databases, spreadsheets and word processing.
The Carl's Jr. system is designed to allow its help desk communicate only with technicians at the company's headquarters in Anaheim, Calif. and an office in Santa Barbara, Calif. A flash for help might appear on as many as 30 computers at once.
For now, free consumer products are in far greater use than products designed from the ground up for businesses. Of the world's more than 180 million instant-messaging clients, less than a third are used primarily for business, said Robert Mahowald, an analyst at IDC.
All the players - including consumer giants America Online, Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft
Corp. - are rolling out enterprise-grade versions that offer security, logging and a bevy of other features to justify prices that can range from $20 to $40 per seat.
None would disclose whether they're making money yet, but analysts say corporate IM software licensing has the potential to be more lucrative and reliable than the free consumer services that make money through advertising.
Commodities broker Steve Slovak saw the value of real-time communication back in the days when teenagers had just discovered it.
"It's less expensive than having an open telephone line to five or six different people around the world," Slovak said while firing off messages at Fimat USA Inc. in New York. "It increases productivity immensely."
For users like Slovak, key attributes are the ability to multitask, and to know that a distant colleague is at his desk.
IM providers have other uses in mind - they see instant messaging as a launching pad for video-conferencing, collaboration within other programs and other future services.
And if added features don't generate sales, scare tactics might.
Because the free consumer messengers make it easy to share files despite corporate firewalls, they can be vectors for viruses and Trojan horses. Usernames that employees use both at work and at home are also a problem.
"You could be fuzzybear23," said Michael Osterman, an analyst at Osterman Research.
"You're not really representing your company by being fuzzybear23. ... And if you leave the company and still communicate with all your old contacts, there's no clue to them that you've left."
That's why, despite the potential for productivity gains, nearly a third of U.S. companies try to block instant messages, he said.
The enterprise-class messengers provide corporations with more control. Messages can be logged, archived and searched. Usernames are tied to corporate e-mail addresses, not user fancy.
Companies that sell messaging systems solely for business use - such as IBM Corp.'s
Lotus Instant Messaging - say that's what their programs have been able to do for years.
In financial services, the requirements for security are obvious. In June, the National Association of Securities Dealers began requiring all IM traffic to be archived for three years.
Slovak's firm chose FaceTime Communications Inc.'s IM gateway, a central point through which all messages must pass. There, messages can scrutinized for adherence to company policies. Slovak is able to use his AOL messaging program, with standard warnings attached saying that chats are being recorded.
Glen D. Vondrick, FaceTime's chief executive, compares free IMs to crabgrass.
Companies, he said, "need to figure out how to get it under control, how to manage it, how to detect who's using it and then decide what they want to do."
Yahoo is working on improving a corporate product introduced last year about the same time as AOL's.
But many are awaiting the entry of Microsoft. The software giant already offers consumer-grade IM and included a corporate messaging client with older versions of the Exchange e-mail server.
Later this year, it plans to launch the Office Live Communications Server 2003, which will integrate with its Office business productivity suite and Microsoft's recently acquired
Web conferencing service, PlaceWare. Prices have not been disclosed.
"We could have set up phones that would be ringing all over God's creation in hopes that somebody might pick up," said Jeff Chasney, chief information officer at CKE Restaurants Inc. "That didn't make sense."
No longer are flash messages over the Internet just about teen gossip. Businesses are grasping the value of instant communication that's faster than e-mail and cheaper than phone calls.
AOL and other companies that run consumer messaging networks now see an opportunity in persuading business to pay for such software - and not the simple versions that employees download for free, often without asking the boss.
New messaging products geared toward the cubicle class mesh instant messages with business databases, spreadsheets and word processing.
The Carl's Jr. system is designed to allow its help desk communicate only with technicians at the company's headquarters in Anaheim, Calif. and an office in Santa Barbara, Calif. A flash for help might appear on as many as 30 computers at once.
For now, free consumer products are in far greater use than products designed from the ground up for businesses. Of the world's more than 180 million instant-messaging clients, less than a third are used primarily for business, said Robert Mahowald, an analyst at IDC.
All the players - including consumer giants America Online, Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft
Corp. - are rolling out enterprise-grade versions that offer security, logging and a bevy of other features to justify prices that can range from $20 to $40 per seat.
None would disclose whether they're making money yet, but analysts say corporate IM software licensing has the potential to be more lucrative and reliable than the free consumer services that make money through advertising.
Commodities broker Steve Slovak saw the value of real-time communication back in the days when teenagers had just discovered it.
"It's less expensive than having an open telephone line to five or six different people around the world," Slovak said while firing off messages at Fimat USA Inc. in New York. "It increases productivity immensely."
For users like Slovak, key attributes are the ability to multitask, and to know that a distant colleague is at his desk.
IM providers have other uses in mind - they see instant messaging as a launching pad for video-conferencing, collaboration within other programs and other future services.
And if added features don't generate sales, scare tactics might.
Because the free consumer messengers make it easy to share files despite corporate firewalls, they can be vectors for viruses and Trojan horses. Usernames that employees use both at work and at home are also a problem.
"You could be fuzzybear23," said Michael Osterman, an analyst at Osterman Research.
"You're not really representing your company by being fuzzybear23. ... And if you leave the company and still communicate with all your old contacts, there's no clue to them that you've left."
That's why, despite the potential for productivity gains, nearly a third of U.S. companies try to block instant messages, he said.
The enterprise-class messengers provide corporations with more control. Messages can be logged, archived and searched. Usernames are tied to corporate e-mail addresses, not user fancy.
Companies that sell messaging systems solely for business use - such as IBM Corp.'s
Lotus Instant Messaging - say that's what their programs have been able to do for years.
In financial services, the requirements for security are obvious. In June, the National Association of Securities Dealers began requiring all IM traffic to be archived for three years.
Slovak's firm chose FaceTime Communications Inc.'s IM gateway, a central point through which all messages must pass. There, messages can scrutinized for adherence to company policies. Slovak is able to use his AOL messaging program, with standard warnings attached saying that chats are being recorded.
Glen D. Vondrick, FaceTime's chief executive, compares free IMs to crabgrass.
Companies, he said, "need to figure out how to get it under control, how to manage it, how to detect who's using it and then decide what they want to do."
Yahoo is working on improving a corporate product introduced last year about the same time as AOL's.
But many are awaiting the entry of Microsoft. The software giant already offers consumer-grade IM and included a corporate messaging client with older versions of the Exchange e-mail server.
Later this year, it plans to launch the Office Live Communications Server 2003, which will integrate with its Office business productivity suite and Microsoft's recently acquired
Web conferencing service, PlaceWare. Prices have not been disclosed.
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... wrote on Oct 28, 2006 4:04 PM:
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