One illustration of this is with the automotive company Reynolds and Reynolds. It uses Jabber servers to monitor the status its own software at numerous automotive dealerships around the world. The IT department at Reynolds can quickly see if the software is down and take steps to get it working again.
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1. David Strom's IM Interoperability Matrix 2. Connect Google Forum 3. Configuring iChat For Google Talk
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Accredited Home Lenders is using online chat sessions to provide its loan brokers a secure and reliable means of communicating in real time with loan specialists to resolve issues with loan applications. And Ecreation built a virtual disk jockey for a Dutch radio station that also broadcasts over the Internet, allowing the station to take requests from listeners around the world via Microsoft's IM network.
Finally, Microsoft is encouraging future developments and interoperability. The company has come out with a new version of its Live Communications Server that can be easily extended by many partners and commercial software vendors to support chat applications. It also supports the Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP, that can be incorporated in many other chat systems, such as Parlano's.
Growing Popularity
With such obvious, myriad benefits, the question arises as to why chat hasn't become more accepted by business IT departments.
All told, chat continues to be on the rise, and companies such as Parlano, Jive, Jabber, and Reuters have seen growth spurts in their installed base during the past year, largely because once chat enters a company, it grows quickly and takes hold. Parlano's Fera said, "Our application is the first one that they turn on, and the last one that they turn off at night."
