Talk Amongst Yourselves

One of the hottest topics in the enterprise IM space is interoperability. Cerulean Studios, which publishes the popular Trillian cross-IM network client, is already interoperable with all of the major public IM networks. Cerulean has an ongoing battle with America Online, though, as the world's largest online service has tried to block Trillian from using its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service. As of now, Trillian is still interoperating with AIM.

Now, Trillian may very well make its way to the enterprise IM space, a top company official told Instant Messaging Planet last week. And Trillian's interoperability would be a major selling point for businesses.

For its part, Liquid finds interoperability to be a very exciting prospect in enterprise IM, especially as protocols like SIP and SIMPLE make their way into the market. Liquid is working on plans to migrate to those protocols in the near future.

But don't look for Liquid to force its way into AIM or other services. "We don't see outside access as one of the pieces of core functionality we want to have at the moment until there's a standard," Davis added.

In terms of market, Liquid Communications Systems will start off by targeting its product at small businesses at the moment -- companies with 100 or fewer concurrent users. Specific types of firms will include law offices, accounting firms, manufacturing, high-tech companies and engineering firms. "We feel like that most of the big firms are targeting much larger companies than we're aiming for," Davis said. "We can provide our service that really fits their needs a lower price and with more customer service. Our customers are very important to us because we're small so we're going to treat them very well."

Pricing has not yet been determined, but Samuels says a model has been determined: "We are going to charge a small base price for the server and then a per seat charge in blocks," he said.

The Young Entrepreneurs

Both Davis and Samuels seem older than their years. But both readily admit that they've been learning a lot while on the job. They like the entrepreneurial community in Raleigh and Research Triangle Park, and plan on sticking around for the near term. "RTP has been a wonderful ecosystem for us to grow in," Davis said. "There's a lot of opportunity for people like us to succeed."

While the company started operations during the high-tech boom of the late 1990's, both partners think that selling to a market in a recession won't be as difficult, mainly because they plan on pricing their IM product on the low side. Davis thinks the market is getting better: "At least that seems to be where things are going. But we have the capacity to grow at reasonable rate so there's no need for the economy, in my mind, to really be hot for us to succeed."

"And companies will always need internal communication," Samuels quickly added.

Spoken like an old tech pro.

Bob Woods is the managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.