A forthcoming solution from Microsoft and two partners will make Microsoft's public instant messaging (IM) service, the .NET Messenger Service (formerly known as MSN Messenger Service), more suitable for business-to-customer communications and competitive with similar offerings from AOL and Yahoo. The solution consists of a new Microsoft service, MSN Messenger Connect for Enterprises, plus software from ISVs IMlogic or FaceTime, and will provide features previously unavailable with .NET Messenger, such as identity control and enterprise-level support. It is separate from Microsoft's forthcoming server and platform for internal IM (code-named Greenwich), although the two products will complement one another.

Public IM Use Rampant

Employee use of public IM networks is widespread: according to a Sept. 2002 survey of 196 large companies conducted by Osterman Research, employees at nearly 60% of these companies were using AOL Instant Messenger (AIM); figures were slightly lower for .NET Messenger (about 50%) and Yahoo Messenger (about 45%). It's not clear how much of this usage is business-related, but Microsoft says that certain industries—particularly the financial services industry—rely heavily on these public networks for customer communication.

Employee use of public IM systems can create a number of problems:

• Companies cannot control employees' identities on these services, leading to potential abuse—for example, an outsider could use a misleading name to pose as a broker at a financial services company or a dismissed employee could continue communicating with customers using an old alias.
• Public IM services are not meant for mission-critical use, and are not maintained accordingly.
• Regulations in some industries, including the financial industry, require all messages to be logged and audited, something public IM services do not provide.

Combining ISV Software, New Service

Microsoft has teamed up with two ISVs in the corporate IM space—IMlogic and FaceTime—to make the .NET Messenger Service more suitable for business-to-customer communication.

Available in early 2003, the solution will consist of a new service from Microsoft, MSN Messenger Connect for Enterprises, and a gateway server from either IMlogic or FaceTime. These gateway servers already offer many features for enterprise IM, such as logging and auditing of all incoming and outgoing instant messages, user access restrictions (e.g., the ability to restrict the download of attachments or to filter out messages from certain addresses or domains), unified identity between public and internal IM services, and administrative tools.

The MSN Messenger Connect service adds the following:

Support. Subscribers will receive enterprise-level support for the .NET Messenger Service, including a technical account manager to work with IT staff on anticipating and resolving problems, and 24-hour access to support representatives.

Identity control. A subscription to MSN Messenger Connect will enable the ISVs’ gateway software to map user names stored in corporate directories (Active Directory or LDAP) to Passport, the authentication system used by the .NET Messenger Service. This gives companies the same control over their employees' user IDs on the .NET Messenger Service that they have over employees' e-mail addresses today. For instance, all employees of a company that owned the domain name foobroker.com would have .NET Messenger aliases ending in foobroker.com, and no other user could have a handle with that suffix. (Both ISVs have offered this namespace management functionality in the past, but it was not supported by Microsoft.)

The announcement of MSN Messenger Connect follows close on the heels of similar announcements from AOL and Yahoo. In Oct. 2002, Yahoo announced plans to release Yahoo Messenger Enterprise Edition in early 2003; it, too, will integrate with IMlogic and FaceTime gateway products for logging, archiving, and identity control. On Nov. 4, AOL announced the availability of Enterprise AIM Services, a broader offering that includes the AIM Enterprise Gateway (essentially a rebranded version of FaceTime's gateway software), enterprise support services, and SDKs that enable developers to embed AIM functionality (such as presence) into other applications.

Different from Greenwich

MSN Messenger Connect addresses a different need than Greenwich, the code name for an optional add-in to Windows .NET Server that will be available in mid-2003. Greenwich is a platform for internal IM and real-time communications, and it also provides a set of APIs that can be used to build capabilities such as presence detection into other applications. It is intended to replace Exchange 2000 IM, which is used exclusively for internal IM. (For more details, see "'Greenwich' to Support Windows IM, Real-Time Communications" on page 6 of the Nov. 2002 Update.)

Although separate, the two products will complement one another. Today, for example, the Exchange IM (internal) and the .NET Messenger Service (public) are completely separate; users can use the same client for both, but they must log on to each service separately and cannot conduct simultaneous sessions or merge buddy lists. But in corporations with Greenwich and MSN Messenger Connect, employees will be able to conduct both types of sessions simultaneously from the same Greenwich-compatible client.

Pricing, Availability, Resources

MSN Messenger Connect will be available in the first quarter of 2003 for US$24 per year per user, with discounts available for volume purchases. (AOL and Yahoo have not published prices for their offerings, but reports suggest that AOL charges between US$30 and US$40 annually per user for its service.)

The service also requires gateway software from IMlogic or FaceTime, which in turn requires Windows Server and SQL Server. According to representatives from the companies, prices range between five and six figures for their gateway software, depending on the size of the installation and the accompanying software and services purchased.

FaceTime is at www.facetime.com; IMlogic is at www.imlogic.com.

For more information about Microsoft's Premier Support, see support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;entpremier.