Networking World: What is a 'legitimate' messaging application?

Thursday, June 16, 2005

What is a 'legitimate' messaging application?

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: MICHAEL OSTERMAN ON MESSAGING
06/16/05
Today's focus: What is a 'legitimate' messaging application?

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Survey shows which applications get blessing of
decision-makers
* Links related to Messaging
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: What is a 'legitimate' messaging application?

By Michael Osterman

In a security study we're going to publish this week, we discuss
organizational perceptions about the legitimacy of various
messaging and related applications. This is important, since
applications that are considered "non-legitimate" by
organizational decision-makers often are used by many people in
the workplace, many times for real business applications.

In one of the surveys we conducted for this report, we found
that the application considered to be least legitimate is Skype,
a free IP telephony application used by millions of users. We
found that only one in six messaging decision-makers considers
Skype to be a legitimate application in a business setting.

Among other applications that are considered by the majority of
decision-makers not to be legitimate are peer-to-peer
file-sharing systems (viewed as non-legitimate by 73% of
messaging decision-makers), chat tools (58%) and consumer-grade
instant messaging (IM) clients (54%). The most legitimate
application, other than business e-mail itself, is considered to
be Web conferencing applications, viewed by 95% of
decision-makers as a legitimate application.

These are important findings, since they indicate there is a
significant disconnect between the perceptions of many IT
decision-makers and users. While some applications are rarely
legitimate in a business context, such as Skype, the validity of
other applications is less clear. For example in our most recent
IM tracking survey, we found that 83% of organizations have some
consumer-grade IM used in their networks, yet only 46% of
messaging decision-makers believe consumer IM is a legitimate
application.

The result can be a decision to block consumer IM traffic as a
protective measure, a valid move given the potential for rogue
protocols and other threats to enter a network through consumer
IM. However, because many people use consumer IM for real work,
taking away this capability can cause these users' productivity
to suffer.

The bottom line is that it is critical for IT and end users to
get on the same page about what constitutes legitimate
applications and which clearly are not. That's easier said than
done - but necessary nonetheless.
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Michael Osterman

Michael D. Osterman is the principal of Osterman Research
<http://www.ostermanresearch.com/>, a market research firm that
helps organizations understand the markets for messaging,
directory and related products and services. He can be reached
by clicking here <mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com>
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Archive of the Messaging newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/gwm/index.html
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Thursday, June 16, 2005

What is a 'legitimate' messaging application?

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