MarketScope for Enterprise Instant Messaging and Presence

Decisions for enterprise IM and presence platforms should be based on strategic infrastructure directions around email, directory services, telephony, unified communications (UC), social, business applications and strategic vendor relationships. The integration of real-time with social (networking) into business applications and process starts at the point of presence, where it is tied into the directory to correctly identify individuals, as well as availability and communication options. Mobile device platforms now extend where presence arises, adding another communication form factor and option.

The enterprise IM and presence market emerged as the usefulness of cloud-based consumer IM services such as AOL, Yahoo, Windows Live, Skype and Google Talk became popular and overran enterprises. The "Nexus of Forces" which Gartner cites as the convergence and mutual reinforcement of social, mobility, cloud and information patterns driving new business scenarios, analyzes what has driven the adoption of enterprise IM and presence in organizations (see "The Nexus of Forces: Social, Mobile, Cloud and Information").

Social is pushing the integration of enterprise IM with enterprise social software and mobile is becoming a necessity for enterprise IM — both driven by consumer solutions, such as Facebook messaging. Those enterprise IM players adding or focusing on social and mobile should warrant being on a company's shortlist because they understand the Nexus drivers. We would advise using caution when dealing with the other vendors that do not. This research is relevant to IT decision makers in charge of messaging infrastructure and also to traditional UC decision makers for IT who traverse voice, IM and presence purchasing decisions.

Issues around archiving and compliance related to IM data is an ongoing business concern (see "Toolkit: Sample Template for Creating an Instant Messaging Governance Policy" and "Manage the Risks of Real-Time Collaboration Tools"). Deploying IM and presence in the cloud is following the trajectory of email in the cloud, as enterprises usually remain with the same vendor.

The integration of social messaging capabilities like activity streams and microblogging with IM extends presence into social applications, tying the corporate directory to rich profiles. Additionally, real-time related to social is being embedded in the context of business applications and processes (see "Sources for Social and Collaboration Functions to Embed in Business Processes" and "Embed Social and Collaboration Functions in Processes to Boost Business Outcomes"). So what was a lightweight application with a small footprint, compared to email, is now becoming a part of the infrastructure that affects other areas of the business and requires effective management.

IM and presence clients are now a hub for real-time communications. While presence is a key infrastructure service, the single-click capabilities of the client make it a launch pad for a variety of modalities, including text, screen sharing, voice and videoconferencing. It is a unifying point that brings communications together.

An emerging trend is the growing number of social business offerings, which include IM and presence. This overlap of functionality is present in offerings from non-traditional collaboration vendors such as Tibco with Tibbr and salesforce.com with Chatter. The overlap of real-time capabilities from these other offerings brings up issues of support, user experience and integration when brought into environments with existing real-time infrastructure.

Usually, integration is a huge issue, as configurations will need to be made to allow plug and play with the IM and presence application in social business applications and with the IM and presence infrastructure service. Potentially, there will be several different client experiences that need to be managed and rationalized. Real-time interenterprise collaboration will also need to be strategically managed if it is happening with the core IM and presence infrastructure, as well as specific IM and presence applications within social or business applications. Along with this, mobile clients are on the increase in enterprises, as users bring in their own devices, which IT now has to support and need to be synchronized with corporate directory services.

Market/Market Segment Description

The market for enterprise IM and presence is characterized by predominantly on-premises offerings. Cloud options by major vendors have emerged, but typically lag behind the on-premises version in terms of full-feature functionality. This has led to slower adoption for cloud-based enterprise IM services. Enterprise IM arrived as a result of the overwhelming use of consumer-based IM services that were cloud based. Adoption of enterprise IM and presence is steadily increasing as the driving force of convergence is pushing it to be absorbed in broader unified communications and collaboration (UCC) strategies.

The IM and presence decision brings voice, text, Web and desktop videoconferencing along with it. However, IM and presence are still purchased as stand-alone services, but many vendors from the voice and UC space usually have it as part of a full communications suite.

As vendors span traditional messaging and collaboration markets to voice and telephony, enterprise purchasing decisions have to factor in what the organization wants to anchor around. Voice and video may favor traditional UC vendors such as Cisco, while stand-alone IM and presence, along with the email decision will favor vendors such as Microsoft. Therefore, most strategic enterprise IM decisions are not made independently or in a vacuum.

Organizations are increasingly seeking to reduce vendor complexity where possible and while they may typically review several vendors on a shortlist, IM and presence is an infrastructure decision for which the incumbent email infrastructure vendor was often favored to provide, along with other collaboration services, if available. This typically favored IBM and Microsoft, which provide the email infrastructure in a vast number of enterprises.

Recent developments by Cisco to give away its Cisco Jabber IM and presence offering to its Unified Communications Manager (UCM) customers for free, may potentially cause some disruption in market dynamics as companies with investments in Cisco voice and video consider it as part of due diligence (see "Cisco's Free IM/Presence Offer Could Sway Enterprises Considering Its UC").

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The minimum functions that a vendor must offer to be included in this MarketScope are as follows:

• Centralized management features
• Security (encryption, digital signatures, secure sign-on and antivirus protection, through a third party if not offered natively).
• Directory integration with an enterprise directory system, such as Active Directory or those that support Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
• Presence engine
• Text chat, group chat and persistent group chat
• Application programming interfaces (APIs) for application developers to customize and integrate into business applications and portals
• Social networking and social messaging integration
• Archiving (directly or through a third party)
• Logging and auditing
• Federation with public IM networks
• Mobile support

Advanced communications services that were first deployed in consumer IM systems are now emerging in enterprise IM products. These services include the following, although they are not included in this analysis:

• Video support (one-to-one, but also multipoint via technical partnerships)
• Voice (click to call)
• Web conferencing support (click to conference)
• Integration with PBXs
• Telephony support

Most vendors have an IM client, but for inclusion in this research we require only that they have a back-end IM and presence server.

Rating for Overall Market/Market Segment

Overall Market Rating: Positive

IM and presence have become the base functionality in UCC suite offerings that users have come to expect and we anticipate they will become a core part of an overall social messaging infrastructure.

Enterprise IM and presence systems have matured and many can be installed to support up to 10,000 users per server. However, most enterprise implementations are deployed in multiple-server environments. Market consolidation will result in fewer, small niche players.

Note that along with the innovation and product/service criteria, this MarketScope analysis also considers sales strategy, market understanding, marketing strategy, marketing execution and overall viability. We have applied higher weightings to marketing strategy, marketing execution and sales strategy.

As a market matures and changes, so does our analysis. Year by year, our inclusion criteria, weightings and opinion about what it takes to maintain market strength may alter. As the IM and presence market has matured, the contending product capabilities have become more comparable, making distinctions based on features and functions less important and increasing the importance of sales and marketing.

Evaluation Criteria

Source: Gartner (August 2012)

Source: Gartner (August 2012)

Vendor Product/Service Analysis

Avaya

Avaya has made some acquisitions and enhancements to its real-time collaboration portfolio via the Persony acquisition (Web conferencing) and the acquisition of Radvision (videoconferencing). Avaya Aura Presence Services hosts its IM and presence capabilities. The platform is multiprotocol and can support both Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).

This enables federation with other enterprise IM and presence environments that are based on these protocols. Federation is possible with Microsoft OCS environments and open XMPP systems and federation with Lync is expected in 3Q12.

The platform supports Android and iOS mobile device platforms among others. Avaya has a history with communications-enabled business processes, which allows it the ability to extend presence into other business processes and environments, such as contact centers.

The Avaya Aura Contact Center solution is also integrated with its Social Media Manager, which allows monitoring of social media interactions with customers. As a traditional unified communications vendor, Avaya doesn't offer an email messaging infrastructure, as do IBM and Microsoft.

The IM and presence for Avaya will arise out of existing investments in voice and telephony. IM and presence are not sold as stand-alone services, so Avaya Aura for enabling just these services would be too much for new, non-Avaya customers.

Protocol support: SIP, XMPP via gateway

Deployment options: On-premises

Rating: Promising

Bantu

Bantu with its EnterpriseIM offering has traditionally had traction in government and defense, where security requirements are very high. It was also instrumental in allowing federation across U.S. armed forces for internetwork messaging with its platform.

However, Bantu needed to get involved with adjacent markets to have a better opportunity of gaining more traction in enterprises. Since the company included capabilities for IM routing in help desks and real-time communications in customer applications, it has embarked on furthering its services and consulting business to offer application integration, engineering and managed services for enterprises looking to leverage social networking and real-time collaboration in business processes.

The Enterprise IM Mobile Web client supports multiple mobile device platforms. Bantu does federate with other UCC environments such as Cisco, IBM and Microsoft. The Bantu offering is not suitable for enterprises looking for other UCC capabilities including Web and videoconferencing along with enterprise IM and presence.

Protocol support: XMPP

Deployment options: On-premises and cloud

Rating: Caution

Cisco

Recent announcements by Cisco depict a change in its strategy for IM and presence and overall UCC. Cisco announced it is now offering IM and presence and the Cisco Jabber client for free to Cisco UCM (CUCM) customers. Customers will have to be on CUCM versions 7.1 and higher.

Cisco's XMPP-based IM and presence offering, Cisco Jabber, unifies its UC portfolio and supports iOS and Android mobile devices, among others. It also supports federation with Microsoft and IBM UCC environments and other XMPP-based systems. Additionally, integration of Cisco Jabber presence is possible with business applications and processes and with its own Cisco WebEx Social (formerly Cisco Quad) social software platform. Typically, when Gartner clients inquire about Cisco IM and presence, they are usually in a situation where there is already a Microsoft Exchange server for email in place and the decision is between Microsoft Lync for IM and presence or Cisco Jabber.

This was challenging, as email was predominantly a key driver leading to the IM and presence decision by the same vendor. Offering Cisco Jabber for free has the potential to disrupt this trend or at least allow enterprises to consider the option seriously. Cisco usually sells into enterprises with voice and video, which is its strength.

The Cisco Jabber client has full integration for click-to capabilities with the voice and video back end. Cisco Jabber presence and click-to capabilities can also be surfaced into Outlook or other Office productivity applications in the same way as with Microsoft Lync presence. As part of due diligence, enterprises should examine the Cisco Jabber offer, not based on it being free, but on how well it can integrate within the current environment.

Protocol support: SIP, XMPP

Deployment Options: On-premises and cloud

Rating: Positive

Google

Google's IM and presence offering, as well as its overall real-time collaboration strategy, is intrinsic to its Google Apps for Business portfolio, so that everyone with Apps gets gmail and Talk. This is somewhat different from most other vendors and shows how Google sees IM and presence as an integral commodity in a collaboration and communication framework. It seems that Google is still making some technology changes in its real-time offerings. Google bought Global IP Solutions, which owned the intellectual property to an HTML5 standard, Web, real-time Communication (WebRTC), which Google open sourced in June 2011 under a royalty free Berkeley Software Distribution license.

WebRTC allows applications for various media such as voice and video calls, video chat, multimedia messaging, file sharing and whiteboarding among other applications to run natively in a browser without any client or plug-in download using simple HTML and JavaScript APIs. Our view is that Google Talk will eventually be migrated to use WebRTC and become accessible natively within a browser. Google Talk is supported on Android devices, but not iOS. There are third-party apps that allow some Google Talk capabilities on iOS devices. The promise of WebRTC may mean potential support for mobile devices without the need for native apps to be developed.

Protocol support: XMPP

Deployment options: Cloud

Rating: Positive

IBM

IBM Sametime is IBM's real-time collaboration platform housing its IM and presence, Web, audio and videoconferencing offerings. IBM has made Sametime a key part of its social business framework. The Sametime Advanced module allows people to identify expertise (in real-time) across communities. Along with this and real-time collaboration, Sametime includes persistent group chat, community-oriented broadcasts and additional location-based services. IBM was an early innovator in this space by merging real-time with its social offerings in IBM Connections. Sametime provides the real-time presence back end that is synched with Connections to enable synchronous interactions, such as Web and videoconferencing. The new IBM Connections Suite includes Connections, Sametime Advanced, Sametime Unified Telephony Lite, Social Content Management and Analytics.

In the latest Sametime release, (8.5.2 Interim Feature Release 1), IBM has added offline messaging, an organizational tree map of the directory and the ability to transfer files to multiple users simultaneously. Federation with public service networks, such as Google Talk and AOL, is also supported, as well as integration with other UCC environments and business and social applications.

Android and iOS mobile device platforms are also supported, among others. Sametime is offered as a stand-alone service for procurement by non IBM Lotus Notes customers. Enterprises are able to utilize Sametime presence and capabilities in other office productivity applications, such as those from Microsoft.

Protocol support: Native proprietary protocol for Sametime, SIP/SIMPLE and XMPP via gateways

Deployment options: On-premises and cloud

Rating: Positive

Microsoft

Microsoft Lync Server has emerged as one of the most recognized IM and presence solutions, as it is tied to the popular Microsoft Exchange/Outlook. Typically, Exchange customers extend to real-time collaboration with Lync and previously Office Communications Server (OCS) R2. While Lync is marketed as a full unified communications and collaboration offering, we find enterprises typically deploy it initially for IM and presence.

Lync 2010 offers a unified client for IM, presence and conferencing. It integrates with Outlook, SharePoint and other business applications. Federation is supported with AOL, Yahoo, Windows Live and with Google Talk via a free XMPP gateway. It supports iOS, Windows mobile and Android mobile device platforms. Lync and SharePoint integration offers enhanced capabilities, such as expertise location via profiles in SharePoint My Sites and embeds presence indication and one-click communication in team or project spaces.

Social activity feed functionality is available and uses data from a mix of sources, including Lync, Exchange and Active Directory. The persistent group chat functionality originally from the Parlano acquisition brings community-based social collaboration in real-time. Lync Online, which is available as a stand-alone service as well as within Office 365, includes IM, presence, voice, video and Web conferencing.

The main gaps in Lync Online vs. Lync on-premises are that federation with public IM services is limited to Windows Live Messenger and MSN Messenger. The missing voice capabilities will now be available via "Lync to Phone," in conjunction with a partner. Lync Online does not provide voice capabilities.

Protocol support: SIP/SIMPLE natively and XMPP via a gateway

Deployment options: On-premises and cloud

Rating: Strong Positive

ProcessOne

ProcessOne is a French-based vendor that has some success with service providers and gets involved in a lot of customized implementations for IM, presence and push notification. The IM platform is based on ejabberd, an open source XMPP-based IM and presence server. While enterprise-ready, it has not achieved consistent success in enterprise sales situations. ProcessOne benefits from being able to add adjacent capabilities to major vendors' UCC solutions such as Microsoft, IBM and Cisco. Push capabilities, persistent group chat and customization services to presence to enable business applications, gives ProcessOne a set of capabilities beyond IM.

ProcessOne also offers integration with public IM networks, such as Google Talk and social network applications such as Twitter. It needs to clearly message the benefits of these services to companies already investing in major UCC infrastructures. Since IM and presence is an infrastructure decision, enterprises requiring complementary application-level, real-time functionality such as Push (which ProcessOne provides), have to ensure integration with real-time infrastructure. Additionally, if an enterprise is seeking more UCC-type features, including Web and videoconferencing, a stand-alone IM and presence decision for ProcessOne will not be enough.

Protocol support: XMPP

Deployment Options: On-premises and cloud

Rating: Caution

Siemens Enterprise Communications

The Siemens OpenScape product is a UC platform with IM and presence as part of the suite. As with most UC platforms there is a "click-to" metaphor for modalities such as voice, video and application sharing. Multiple deployment models allow for some flexibility in how enterprises can deploy OpenScape based on user needs and level of access. Multiplatform mobile support continues for iOS, Android and other mobile device platforms. OpenScape supports XMPP and can be integrated in other UCC environments such as Microsoft, IBM and Cisco.

As with Avaya, IM and presence is not sold as a stand-alone service, so for companies without existing investments in Siemens, the decision would have to encompass an overall UCC strategy beyond just IM. Siemens' OpenScape Social Media Integration allows integration into social networking applications such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Lattitude. Employees can leverage it to reach outside contacts and to connect with customers in contact center scenarios.

The OpenScape platform can scale to large enterprises and has already achieved this in multiple service provider environments. Additionally, as Siemens doesn't have an email offering, IM and presence decisions come through its existing UCC platform, which would be too much for new customers requiring stand-alone IM and presence and without an existing Siemens investment.

Protocol support: SIP, XMPP via gateway

Deployment Options: On-premises and cloud

Rating: Promising