Ubuntu for Small Business

[Stephan Hermann]

Hi Derek,

On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 09:31 -0300, Derek Broughton wrote:
> 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.

It depends on the business. There are times, when IM can save you a lot
of time, if it's not overcrowded with non useful things like smilie
videos etc.
Jabber/XMPP is a good alternative to incoporate several things into one.


> > 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.

It depends on your working behaviour. Working with Exchange and emailing
other people cost me more time, then to phone or write an instant
message. 

> 
> > 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_.

Same applies to IM..you decide when to answer and when you have time to
answer.

Conclusion, it depends on your working environment. 

I adjusted the reply to header to ubuntu-users, cause ubuntu-devel is
not the right place to discuss this issue any further.

regards,

\sh