AOL abandons instant messaging for business

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 22 Jun 2004 at 12:36

AOL has joined Yahoo! in deserting the world of instant messaging for business.

Last week, Yahoo! announced it was shutting down its enterprise instant messaging (IM) software - today AOL has announced it is to do the same, moving users from its AIM Enterprise Gateway system to IMlogic's IM Manager.

End users will not be charged for the move and will receive licences for IMlogic's IM Manager which offers management, policy enforcement and security services, as well as for its IM Linkage for AIM Network Services. The software is certified to work with the AIM clients.

'Our agreement to migrate the AIM Enterprise Gateway customers to IMlogic's AIM certified solutions reflects the evolution of the enterprise instant messaging market,' said Edmund Fish, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Desktop Messaging, America Online. 'Going forward, we will deliver AIM Business Services directly to tens of millions of "at work" AIM users while working with certified software partners like IMlogic to extend our reach in the enterprise IM market and meet the real-time communication needs of companies large and small.'

Indeed last week, AOL teamed up with WebEx Communications to allow AIM business users to teleconference and share applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.

What these moves really come down to is that the killer feature of IM is just that: instant messaging. And Yahoo!, AOL and Microsoft are already offering this for free.

They were hoping to capitalise on instant messaging's success in business and make a market out of offering extra enterprise-class services such as authenticating users and saving dialogues for a fee.

But users aren't clamouring to pay for these extras when the main feature is free - hence AOL now preferring to partner rather than develop its own enterprise IM.

Even so, Microsoft is still developing in-house for business instant messaging services. Last month Microsoft announced a beta of its Live Communications Server 2005 that offers authenticated and secure access to IM services for mobile workers. But Redmond, too, is looking for partners to complement its offerings.