Certain types of businesses and organizations are required by law or industry requirements to keep accurate logs of instant messages. In the financial field, banks and other financial-services firms must live up to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations, as well as rules from the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). Doctors, pharmacists, insurance companies and other types of firms in the healthcare industry, meantime, have to deal with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
Other companies, meantime, may want to cover themselves legally from lawsuits or other actions by customers, suppliers or consultants by keeping track of IM conversations.
Bellevue, Wash.-based Cordant Inc., which is already providing archiving services for users of Microsoft Exchange 2000, enters the public IM archiving market with its new OmniScribe software.
OmniScribe provide enterprises with the logging of messages sent on the two most-popular public IM networks -- AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and MSN Messenger. With OmniScribe, financial services and healthcare companies can bring themselves into compliance with the regulations they need to follow in regards to electronic communications.
In and of themselves, AIM and MSN cannot archive IM conversations. Cordant's OmniScribe monitors and controls IM conversations that occur from behind a company's firewalls over AOL's and MSN Messenger's public IM networks. Companies and organizations that feel the need to protect themselves in case of litigation can also use the software.
Cordant is the latest entrant in the public IM archiving field. FaceTime Communications is the other big name in the field. Other companies like Imici and Bantu offer archiving as part of their enterprise IM-strength systems -- both of which also provide interoperability with the major public IM networks.
Bob Woods is the managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.
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