AOL last week unveiled its long-awaited business instant-messaging offering, Enterprise AIM Services. IT departments can control the system from behind a company's firewall and manage users from their company directories via a federated authentication service. IBM Lotus Software, Microsoft, and Novell already offer company-messaging tools. But AOL's sales organization, Ferris Research analyst Michael Sampson says, lacks relationships with IT decision makers, so it may have a tough time competing.