Ubuntu for Small Business

[Derek Broughton]

John Richard Moser wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:

>> I've never worked at a place that had internal instant messaging.  What a
>> horrible way to waste people's time.
> 
> I've heard tell people utilize AOL or MSN messenger services _AS_ _A_
> _BUSINESS_ _TOOL_ officially in some companies -- what a horrible
> security hazard.
> 
> And who wants to spend 5 minutes writing and sending an e-mail and
> waiting for a reply bouncing the messages back and forth on stupid
> store-and-forward systmes when you can send those same messages in
> seconds?

That's the problem, and why no business I've worked for (if they've ever
thought about it) wants to install instant messengers.  Telephones are bad
enough.  I go back far enough to remember a time when anyone who wasn't a
manager didn't have a telephone, and managers had secretaries to answer
theirs.  Now you have to continually stop what you're doing to answer the
phone.  Instant messaging makes that even worse.  Whee I started doing
contract work for my current major client, I managed to avoid getting a
phone for months - imagine the productivity!  I guess the only thing better
about IM than phones is that I can't (yet) imagine my banker stopping in
the middle of a meeting with me to answer an IM.  They do it when the phone
rings, though.

> You're making the argument that because a tool can be abused, we
> shouldn't make it better because it can be abused more efficiently;

No, I'm arguing that an IM tool has no place in business, except for the odd
help-desk situation - and there are better ways to do that too.

> personal e-mails fly back and forth all the time, and eat company time.

Emails are asynchronous.  Business or personal, they still eat time, but
they eat it when it's appropriate _for me_.

>  Personal IMs would fly back and forth too for sure, but it's not like
> it's mandatory just because the functionality's there.  

Yeah, I know, I'm just campaigning to keep IM out of the workplace :-)
-- 
derek