Ubuntu for Small Business

[Derek Broughton]

Stephan Hermann wrote:

> 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.
>> > 
>> > 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.

You're missing the point, I'm afraid.  I haven't the slightest doubt that
email is slower than phoning or sending an IM - for the initiator. 
However, every time you do that somebody else has to give up their time to
deal with you.  There are very, _very_, few businesses where I would
concede that's an appropriate use of time.  Email takes a little longer,
but it uses time more appropriately. 

>> 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.

It can, but imo there's an expectation among users that you'll respond.
> 
> I adjusted the reply to header to ubuntu-users, cause ubuntu-devel is
> not the right place to discuss this issue any further.

You're probably right - unfortunately, gmane news can't translate that into
a "followup-to", so if you hadn't mentioned it I'd have posted right back
to devel :-)
-- 
derek