Instant messaging and presence have an important role to play in the increasingly mobile enterprise, but they must be carefully deployed and managed if greatest value for least risk is to be achieved. Companies that do not treat IM and presence as a strategic, mission critical system will find that they have not properly taken advantage of an important tool in the battle to improve efficiency and remain competitive.

This J.Gold Associates white paper provides an overview of instant messaging (IM) and presence, as well as the future trends and technologies which will impact enterprise-class users. It explores the role of mobile IM and presence in the enterprise and offers some concrete examples of what enterprises should and should not do in providing IM capability for its end users, how to evaluate the various components, and what to deploy and when to deploy it.