Instant messaging (IM) is experiencing strong growth, both in SA and Africa, and is being seen as a good alternative to e-mail.
This is according to IM stakeholders, who agree that communication trends in the country and the continent are evolving significantly.
According to Jean-Pierre Kloppers, co-founder of IM application AeroMessenger, the low percentage of people with access to the Internet in SA is part of the reason why IM has seen more than 100% growth in the country over the past two years.
"Through the use of IM applications and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-enabled mobile technology, users can have a mobile IM account without having to own a PC," says Kloppers.
He says IM is, therefore, fast becoming the leading alternative to e-mail, with more mobile Internet users in SA at the moment than PC users.
According to Kloppers, the IM phenomenon is moving beyond trendy teenagers to become a real-time communication technology for all.
"Statistics from the rest of Africa support the WAP mobile boom," he notes. "According to my July 2006 statistics, 61% of the BBC`s international WAP users came from Nigeria, followed by 19% from SA."
Kloppers says unreliable landlines encourage Africa to remain the largest-growing mobile phone market in the world.
Disseminating knowledge
Mario Smith, a research analyst at Gartner, agrees that IM is becoming as critical to many knowledge workers as e-mail or even the telephone.
"Gartner predicts that, by the end of 2011, IM will be the de facto tool for voice, video and text chat, with 95% of workers in leading global organisations using it as their primary interface for real-time communications by 2013," says Smith. "The worldwide market for enterprise IM is forecast to grow from $267 million in 2005 to $688 million in 2010."
He agrees that IM systems have moved from the fringe to become a key part of an enterprise`s collaboration infrastructure. He says these applications are increasingly displacing existing forms of communications, from ad hoc telephone calls and e-mails, to pre-planned meetings and video conferences.
According to Smith, IM will parallel e-mail`s phenomenal success in the 1990s. "IM is increasingly being used as a vehicle for rapidly disseminating critical information to the entire enterprise, groups of users, or individuals in cases such as natural catastrophes, health issues, network outages or schedule changes."
However, Smith does not believe IM will outright replace e-mail, because of, among other issues, e-mail`s archiving capacity.
"The issue is that users can save their text chat information at the client side and this could be tampered with. Until this issue is effectively resolved, it could lead to huge legal headaches."
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