LCS 2005 Takes Corporate IM Beyond the Firewall

Live Communications Server (LCS), Microsoft’s corporate instant messaging (IM) and presence product, has received a significant upgrade only one year after its inaugural release. The new release, LCS 2005, extends secure and auditable IM and presence services beyond the firewall to roaming Windows Messenger users and other organizations running LCS 2005, and it introduces a highly scalable and available Enterprise Edition. However, without the addition of partner products, it is not a complete voice-over-IP solution.

Use of Corporate IM Expanding

Organizations are increasingly interested in using IM in lieu of e-mail and voice under certain circumstances. IM has the immediacy of voice but with less disruption to the recipient and without affecting others within audible range. It also provides preliminary information to the initiator as to whether the recipient is available without needing to know the specific device on which to contact him. Another advantage of IM is that it can be used by programs to automatically send time-critical alerts, such as a security alarm. Unlike a pager, which sends messages to a specific device, an IM-based alert goes to whichever device the user is currently using.