Corporate IM use on the rise

More workers are using instant messaging (IM) in the course of their business day, according to new US research funded by America Online.

Among respondents who said they were employed, a whopping 43 percent also said they used IM.

Last year, 27 percent of 4500 IM users surveyed, said they used IM at work, up 71 percent from 16 percent in 2003.

The surging numbers illustrate that resellers supporting business accounts -- many running IM not sanctioned by IT departments -- had better get a handle on IM technologies and management.

America Online, one of three giants fielding "public" or free IM services along with Yahoo and Microsoft, surveyed the respondents 7 to17 June and 26 to 28 July, said a spokesperson for AOL.

Respondents were not limited to AOL IM users. This was a survey of the general IM universe, the spokesperson said.

The vast majority of IM users use free or consumer based services.

The Radicati Group estimates by year's end there will be 831 million active IM accounts, 92 percent of which are on public, consumer-oriented IM networks.

While AOL and Yahoo started to offer paid "enterprise"-class IM services, they've retrenched, offloading that business to partners like Akonix, IMLogic and Facetime Communications.

AOL itself had 1500 AOL @ Work customers, according to the spokesperson.

Microsoft continues its corporate IM push with Live Communications Server 2005, due this year.

IBM's Lotus has long fielded its Sametime enterprise IM as well. With burgeoning regulation on the archiving and storage of messages, these paid IM services may see increased interest, observers say.

Other findings: 59 percent of internet users use IM; 29 percent send as many instant messages as they do email messages.

Unsurprisingly, 90 percent of 13 to 21 year olds surveyed said they used IM. Indeed, IM started out as a youth movement, with kids and adolescents seemingly addicted to the services. Their parents and older siblings soon followed suit.

Sixty-one percent of respondents said they used more than one IM application, with AOL remaining the leader for 52 percent of those surveyed.

Many users see IM as a way to avoid the spam and other annoyances plaguing email although "Spim", unsolicited IM, is starting to become a problem.

In other research cited by AOL, Osterman Research estimated 24 million IM users logged on from work, with 58 percent using AOL Instant Messaging or AIM. AOL also fields the ICQ service.

The survey included 4510 respondents at least 13 years old in the top 20 markets around the US. It was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for Time Warner subsidiary America Online.