Mobile enterprise IM accounts to touch 15.1 million in 2010

Pragati Simlote

NEW DELHI: The widespread use of mobile devices and a gradual movement towards unified communications is bringing the instant messenger (IM) and mobile markets closer together, as carriers, IM vendors, and device manufacturers continue to add mobile IM functionality to their services.

According to research firm Radicati, Mobile IM usage is still a very small portion of total IM usage today, with only an estimated 2.3 million Enterprise Mobile IM accounts in 2006, compared with 62 million total Enterprise IM accounts. The research firm expects this number to grow sharply in the next two to three years, as demand grows and more cost-effective solutions reach the market.

The number of worldwide IM accounts is expected to increase from 944 million in 2006 to over 1.4 billion in 2010. In the early stages of the IM market, the landscape of the space was generally comprised of large, consumer-targeted, public IM services, which offered basic IM features free of charge. However, with the market maturing, corporate adoption of IM has increased rapidly, creating the need for enterprise-focused IM services.

According to Radicati’s “The Messaging Technology Report’, there would be 156 million enterprise IM accounts by 2010, up from 62 million in 2006. The mobile enterprise IM accounts are expected to increase from 2.3 million in 2006 to 15.1 million in 2010. This implies that from being just four per cent of the total enterprise IM accounts, the mobile enterprise IM accounts are expected to form 10 per cent of total enterprise IM accounts.

The report also suggests that while mobile IM services generally offer the core IM functionality, such as presence, and the ability to send and receive IMs, vendors should continue to refine mobile IM-related technologies, in order to make mobile IM clients nearly equal in feature-sets to desktop clients. This is also a good opportunity for third-party software developers, as the mobile IM market is still very young, and there is a growing market for IM clients on mobile devices.

The technology is not only beneficial for vendors alone and consumers and corporate users alike can benefit from mobile IM, especially if they send hundreds of Instant Messages per day. Corporate users can especially benefit from mobile IM and presence, as it allows them to stay productive away from their desktop. However, awareness of the technology is very important, as not all carriers and mobile devices fully support mobile IM.

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