Instant Messaging & Collaboration
Introduction
Looking around the Web development community in the last
couple months, it seems there is a new killer app in the
enterprise: Instant Messaging (IM). OK, it's not so new but the
fact remains that some previously proprietary (i.e. Yahoo Messenger) platforms are now marketing
to the enterprise. These applications boast features like single
sign-on, encryption, message archiving, authentication
integration and more. Many companies are discovering that their
employees are using these tools (I know I have used ICQ fairly
regularly for years...), and that IM is an extremely effective
way to communicate via computer, cellphone or PDA--just about
any device anywhere. This concept of user availability has been
given the moniker presence. But, rather than promote
the use of third-party tools like ICQ and AOL® Instant
Messenger™, today's enterprise managers want to integrate
messaging into their IT infrastructure, allowing for increased
security and control of their employees' online
communications.
In addition, the IM of today is really more of a
collaborative application, allowing users to communicate via
video and audio, share files, and even perform some whiteboard
and other shared applications. It's no wonder that this is
today's killer application. IM can increase inter/intra
corporation communication, reduce teleconferencing, video-
conferencing and even travel expenses, reduce scheduling issues
(by allowing free-form, real-time communication) and meeting
times and more.
My initial purpose in writing this review was to find a good IM
tool that would integrate with J2EE by providing a Java API that
developer's could use to integrate messaging into their
applications. But what I found was a war.
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