I've been getting a lot of congratulatory notes on the first Instant Messaging Planet Spring 2002 Conference and Expo, held March 7-8 in Boston. While I don't have a specific head count in front of me, I do know that attendance exceeded my wildest dreams.
Also, the number of exhibitors and sponsors we had was very encouraging, and not just for the future of the show or the bottom line of the company I work for. It showed that enterprise instant messaging (IM) is alive and well, and will only grow from here.
I thought it was interesting that Jabber announced that it will be putting on two JabberCon shows this year -- one in Europe, one here in the U.S. -- on the same date that our show started. My guess is that the Jabber people at our show saw the number of people there and decided to ride the IM wave (apologies to Qwest). This also proves to me that enterprise IM growth is in acceleration mode.
I had the honor of moderating six sessions in all -- in "Jerry Springer" mode (taking a wireless mic into the audience), to boot. At least we didn't have any toothless people saying "Well, he was IMing me and her at the same time, and she's my sister" and getting into fights. Although that might have been fun.
We did have some lively discussions, though, and not all the panelists agreed on every topic. The one that surprised and intrigued me was the difference in opinion on interoperability among IM systems. I have to admit that I think interoperability is crucial if this industry is going to grow in the way I know it can. Some people, though, see IM interoperability as just another way to use work time to IM the significant other about getting a gallon of milk or some such nonsense. They don't see interoperability for what it is -- an easier way to include customers and suppliers on crucial business conversations. Besides, people can use e-mail or the phone to compile shopping lists.
Another interesting point came up during the "IM and the Law" session. What kind of privacy do workers have in using IM systems? The long and short of it appears to be the company -- just like it has in having the ability to scan e-mail, monitor and record phone calls and oversee Web-surfing sessions. I could tell a lot of people in the audience didn't like that answer. But when you're on company time and using the company's equipment, the company essentially owns you.
Dr. David Weinberger's keynote on the future of IM was very interesting, too. When I interviewed him last month for the Q&A series that ran on the site, he came across on the phone as an introverted yet thoughtful person who has a lot of opinions on technology and IM. During the speech, he replaced the word "introverted" with "extremely outgoing," as he gave the most energetic address of the two-day event. Through all of his interesting (yet hard to boil down) talk about threadML, super nodes and Web conversations, his message was simple: IM at work will not be all that different from IM at home. And that's not a bad thing, either.
As we announced in Boston last week, we're expecting to do this again in the fall somewhere in the Silicon Valley area. This time, though, the conference will be even bigger and -- yes -- better. Six months or so is a huge chunk of time in the world of IT, and it'll be interesting to see where the market and its players will stand at that point.
My predictions for the fall:
- We'll see fewer but bigger players in the market (and hopefully at the show) -- mainly because of mergers/acquisitions, but more venture-capital funding of current companies will help bolster companies in the sector as it gains more prominence and importance in the overall IT world
- As adoption of eCRM accelerates, so will the integration of IM-like applications (one-on-one text messaging) within those eCRM products
- Essentially the same companies currently using IM to market a message/product to a target audience will be doing so in six months; in other words, only a few will be added to that list. Most businesses will still be looking to figure out how to use IM both internally and to keep in contact with customers/suppliers to worry about using IM as a marketing channel
- Even though we had a split of opinions in terms of interoperability, we'll still be as far away as ever from network cross-compatibility in the public IM world
- Speaking of interoperability, America Online will recognize the relevance and importance of enterprise IM, and will show up at the fall IMPlanet show.
There's one more prediction I have, but it may not occur in the next six months. Mark my words, though, it'll happen. A malicious hacker/group of hackers will create some kind of virus/worm/mean ol' IT thing that will use one of the public IM networks to infiltrate several (if not many) Fortune 100 companies that are currently: 1) not using enterprise-strength IM; and 2) are ignoring the fact that their employees are using public IM for messaging. This virus/worm/mean ol' IT thing will cause either severe damage to or compromise extremely sensitive corporate data on said systems.
Whenever this happens, companies hopefully will see the need for full-strength enterprise IM, and not entirely shut out the concept of IM. As most everyone in Boston said, enterprise IM will be crucial for the growth of business in the future.
We'll see you out west in the fall.
Bob Woods is the managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet and was the co-chair of the Instant Messaging Planet Spring 2002 Conference and Expo. He's assuming he'll be the co-chair of the fall conference as well.
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