Body raises IM standards

Europe is to get its own instant messaging (IM) standards group, to promote interoperable, secure IM.

The first meeting of e-business association Eema's IM focus group will take place in London tomorrow. Roger Dean, head of special projects at Eema, said the group would address the issue of unauthorised use of public IM applications within enterprises.

Many argue that inter-company messaging could improve the way firms work.

But at present IM applications do not allow cross-platform comms. The group will also address standards, spam, archiving and privacy, as well as developing risk-management strategies.

Members of Eema include Microsoft, IBM, Unilever and Royal Mail.

A separate Instant Messaging Standards Board was set up by a group of US financial services firms in 2002, also pushing for interoperable IM systems.

See also:

MSN, AOL and Yahoo team on instant messaging

Integrated products to let business users communicate using rival apps  16 Jul 2004

Unite to fight online irritants

More co-ordination between the various working groups could better combat problems such as phishing and spam  24 Jun 2004

Spam - the next generation

Staff that use instant messaging may soon find their productivity hit by a new form of spam  14 Apr 2004

Give IM a chance

Instant messaging can make staff more productive, but firms must ensure appropriate safeguards are in place  16 Oct 2003

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