ANTenna Blog -- Networking & Communications

Technology is often a step or two ahead of an IT staff’s ability to control it. That has certainly been the case with some recent communications advances. Increasingly small and medium businesses are recognizing that they need to monitor their employees’ instant messaging conversations, and in response, various vendors have been moving to deliver such services.

Concentric, a business unit of carrier XO Communications, announced Concentric Business Messenger, a real-time instant messaging security service. Increasingly, businesses need to keep a record of all of their communications. One factor driving the need to secure IM conversations is recent regulations, such as Sarbanes Oxley and the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. IM has evolved into quick and easy way to reach another person, however, much of the interest in IM has come from the consumer market. So the challenge for small and medium businesses is to pinpoint who might be using these services and then monitor and perhaps restrict their network usage.

Unlike public chat services, Business Messenger allows IT managers to limit communications, for example just to people in the organization so the service is used to enhance productivity. In addition, all communications via Concentric Business Messenger are encrypted with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) so information is secure. The carrier tried to make the service easy to deploy: users can add contacts by selecting their names via a chat client on their desktops.

Concentric has focused on delivering hosted services to small and medium businesses. The company has been concentrated on providing Microsoft Exchange services. The new IM services are bundled with those services or are available at a cost of $1 per user, per month for non-Exchange users. The hosted messaging market has been growing at rapid rate, and Concentric is one of many vendors vying for a slice of that market. Its new services could open up another door or two for the company.