Instant messaging (IM) is widely used in North American workplaces today and is becoming increasingly popular. The technology provides a number of important benefits, including the ability to communicate with others in real time, the ability to know someone's presence status and the ability to improve organizational decision-making an information flow.

Unfortunately, most use of IM in the workplace consists of consumer-grade IM clients that do not provide the level of security organizations require in order to adequately protect their networks. As a result, it is extremely important that IT managers implement a plan to deploy an enterprise-grade IM solution while at the same time minimizing the impact of this change on end users and on their IT staff.

This white paper discusses the important benefits that business IM can provide to any sized organization, the risks that organizations face from unmanaged use of IM, and the factors that must be addressed as organizations plan their upgrade to an enterprise-grade IM capability. This white paper also discusses the solution offered by WebEx and the advantages that their capabilities can provide to any organization.