At the time, employees were just beginning to bring Instant Messaging into the enterprise as a business tool, albeit one without corporate sanction or control.

We saw that as Instant Messaging use grew, corporations would require new solutions for effectively taking advantage of the power of Instant Messaging technology to ensure that Instant Messaging was:

• Secure: protecting the corporate network and confidential information
• Controlled: allowing IT to centrally manage and monitor
• Compliant: meeting government and industry regulations
• Manageable: enabling flexible, granular policies on employee Instant Messaging use
• Integrated: leveraging investments in IT infrastructure such as directory, archiving, security and other systems

Since then, Instant Messaging has grown faster than anyone predicted. In 2004 there are an estimated 364 million corporate users of IM. This year, Gartner says enterprises must implement an instant messaging management and security program. Virtually every organization (over 90% according to Osterman Research) has Instant Messaging users within their network.