We've seen some heady projections recently for instant messaging growth, a fact that leaves some scratching their heads, but not me. Sure, it's a technology that IT managers love to hate. Sure, it's a market already consolidating behind some big players. Sure, there are standards issues that would appear to be slowing its adoption, at least in the enterprise arena. But hey, it's a hot, real-time communications technology that promises to keep offering ever-better functionality, and we humanoids love our communication technology. History has shown we never seem to get enough. Small, incremental improvements? Gotta have 'em. IT won't support it? No problem.

When it comes to communication technology, the leading edge is a momentary status that is by no means a predicament, and the bleeding edge means the technology got inside your organization without invitation. What else is new?IDC was the latest research house to release its numbers, which pegged the worldwide IM Market, including IM servers, security, compliance and management products at $315 million. IDC expects the market to more than double to $736 million by 2009. If anything, that might even be conservative, but as time goes on those numbers will be harder to prove, especially once IM moves from being discrete products and services to a point where it presence and collaboration capabilities get integrated into other systems.

I'm sure teams of lawyers are already making sure that messaging doesn't become so tightly coupled with an operating system that funny things happen if you try to decouple it, but by then we'll be keeping up with another hot communications technology.We've seen some heady projections recently for instant messaging growth, a fact that leaves some scratching their heads, but not me. Sure, it’s a technology that IT managers love to hate. Sure, it's a market already consolidating behind some big players. Sure, there are standards issues that would appear to be slowing its adoption, at least in the enterprise arena. But hey, it's a hot, real-time communications technology that promises to keep offering ever-better functionality, and we humanoids love our communication technology. History has shown we never seem to get enough. Small, incremental improvements? Gotta have 'em. IT won't support it? No problem.