FOSTER CITY, Calif.- April 26, 2004 -
Furthering its leadership as the world's largest provider of
solutions that secure, manage, and extend instant messaging (IM)
and other forms of real-time communications in the enterprise,
FaceTime Communications today announced the results of a survey
issued in partnership with IDC that indicates most organizations
prohibiting instant messaging in the enterprise fail to address
critical network security, information security and regulatory
compliance risks posed by its unauthorized use among workers. Of
the hundreds of LOB and IT professionals from organizations
representing varying sizes and industries that participated in the
survey, 36% reported IM is prohibited by their organizations, but
only 17% of those prohibiting IM reported having a solution in
place to block usage. Public IM clients can easily be downloaded
and used by workers without IT knowledge or control unless IM
blocking solutions have been implemented. Of the businesses that
haven't deployed IM, 90% cited certain adoption barriers that can
be resolved by technology solutions already on the market. For each
of the top three concerns-decreased productivity, compromised
information and network security, and difficulty in adhering to
government regulations and corporate standards-IM security and
management solutions are available to enable the safe embrace of
instant messaging in the enterprise. "To IM or not to IM, that is
not the question in light of existing consumer IM use," said Robert
Mahowald, research manager, Collaborative Computing at IDC. "The
right question is how to use IM most effectively in the workplace,
either by supporting consumer IM use with the help of solutions
that address security and regulatory compliance implications or by
embracing IM products with sophisticated security and management
tools that protect their networks, ensure regulatory compliance,
and safeguard both corporate and personal data." Of the 64% of
surveyed businesses that do embrace instant messaging, 70% of large
enterprises with 1,000 or more employees cited improved
communication (defined as time-sensitive information exchange and
communication with geographically dispersed groups) and
productivity enhancements as the primary IM deployment drivers. 87%
of small and medium businesses with less than 1,000 employees
listed cost savings from reduction of email and phone usage as the
chief value delivered by IM. "FaceTime believes organizations that
don't embrace the business benefits of IM may put themselves at a
competitive disadvantage," said FaceTime President and CEO Kailash
Ambwani. "But businesses that ban the use of IM without installing
solutions that can block it are vulnerable to far greater risks
associated with information and network security in addition to
regulatory and corporate compliance." Also among the report's
findings:
- Top reasons for using IM: 78% of all respondents cite quick
business conversations needed to move forward on a task or exchange
time-sensitive information. 44% cite collaboration among
geographically dispersed groups.
- Only 14% surveyed cited lack of interoperability as a deterrent
to IM adoption.
- IM's network usage patterns are evenly split, with 31% of those
surveyed using public IM exclusively, 39% using enterprise IM
exclusively, and 30% using a combination of both.
- 88% surveyed use IM for employee-to-employee chat. 41% use IM
to communicate with partners or customers.
FaceTime's Suite of Solutions
FaceTime's suite of solutions addresses regulatory and corporate
compliance and information and network security issues in the
enterprise. FaceTime RTG500™, an industry-first network appliance,
allows organizations to effectively block all IM and peer-to-peer
(P2P) connections or standardize on one or two public networks. In
addition, FaceTime IM Director™ is available to resolve general IM
management and security challenges along with FaceTime IMAuditor™,
which addresses specific regulatory compliance needs of today's
businesses. FaceTime solutions work independently or together for a
tightly integrated solution managing both user and application
behavior. Detection software, such as FaceTime's RT Monitor™, is
also downloadable for free at www.facetime.com, and can be used to
expose unauthorized IM and P2P activity so potential security and
compliance risks can be properly assessed and resolved with an IM
management and security solution.
About Actiance, Inc. (Formerly FaceTime Communications, Inc.)
FaceTime Communications became Actiance, Inc on January 11, 2011 following an agreement to
transfer the FaceTime trademark to Apple.
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of Unified Communications and Web 2.0,
including instant messaging, blogs and social networking. Ranked number one by IDC for five consecutive
years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by more than 1,500 customers for the security,
management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime supports or has strategic partnerships
with all leading IM, unified communications providers and social networks including AOL, Google, Yahoo!,
Skype, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit
http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-3223.
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