The Next Great Leap

FINANCIAL FIRMS ARE LEADING THE WORLD IN THE ADOPTION OF GROUP CHAT TECHNOLOGY, SAYS HOWARD TRAVERS

As featured on Finance on Windows Magazine, Autumn 2009

The financial sector has always been one of the pioneers of new technology, especially in the realm of communications. It isn’t hard to see why: financial markets move rapidly and vast sums of money can be gained or lost by responding quickest to a particular shift, so having access to great information and the ability to share it instantly with colleagues or customers is an obvious advantage. Yet, at the same time, the sector has been concerned that one to one IM would be misused for non business related work or that sensitive information could be shared in an industry that has always been relatively tightly regulated. Thus, although fast communication is vital, finding ways to share information across globally dispersed groups for business purposes and give the ability to provide an audit trail of who said what, to whom and when has been paramount.

Banks and other financial firms have been using instant messaging (IM) technology for some time now, essentially ever since Group Chat became available and it became possible for software to record conversations, thus ensuring that compliance requirements could be met – obviously in any regulated business, it’s impossible to allow employees to share sensitive information in a format that will disappear into the ether as soon as the application is closed down. Forward-looking businesses, focused on speed of collaboration, flow and execution, have gone way beyond the stereotypical management view of five years ago, that ‘IM & Chat’ was simply about staff gossiping and wasting time, when they should be doing real work.

But Group Chat – the next generation of IM, if you like – goes far beyond the simple exchange of information that is most executives’ perception of this kind of technology. When Microsoft acquired the Group Chat technology as a result of its purchase of Parlano back in 2007, for which I formerly worked, and embedded it into Office Communications Server, I don’t believe many people within the company were really aware of the potential impact of the deal. I really believe that this kind of technology will change the way all organisations work, not just financial services, in a fundamental way.

Offering Group Chat as part of OCS made it more accessible by reducing the cost of entry. But, because of the scope of Microsoft’s offering, there is still a degree of confusion over what Group Chat is, and what it can do. Group Chat & IM has been, and still largely is, viewed as an internal communications tool, but the real transformation comes when it starts to be used for communication outside the organisation as well as within. The big value add for Group Chat – the missing link if you like – is the ability to structure chat rooms across the entire organisation, teams and projects internally. The next natural step is to go online externally, perhaps logon to your company’s internal OCS world while away from the office, and to get all the things you’d have in a thick client in a Group Chat Web environment. I believe the process will be akin to the early development of e-mail, which, after all, started off as a tool for communication within organisations. These networks were linked up and federated, and eventually we had the global Internet. Naturally I believe IM is going to federate in the same way.

For the full article, click here

Enterprise Group Chat Forum - 7th May 2009, London

The past few weeks have been really exciting at work, not to mention the sunny weekends which allowed some flying and quality time with my family. Us at Formicary are currently busy in preparation for the first ever Enterprise Group Chat Forum happening next week in the City!

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RBS is graciously hosting the forum which is specially created for companies with interest in persistent group chat and wanting to know more about what's instored for them. Companies who are new to the subject are also welcomed as we're all here to share our thoughts about persistent group chat and the way forward. 

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The objective of this independent forum is to bring together organisations of a similar commitment to Enterprise IM & Group Chat. By reviewing successful solutions and implementations, it is hoped members will be able to share ideas/concerns and provide a clear voice to the Industry with regard to the future of Persistent Group Chat, IM &  Unified Communication Strategies.

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For the first event we have invited guest speaker, Bob Serr, Lead Project Manager (Group Chat), Microsoft to share news about the Group Chat feature in the new OCS 2007 R2. 

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Philip Miller, Director of Formicary Intelligent Collaboration Group will present his team's investigation of Group Chat API and the opportunities & challenges that it currently presents. This will naturally lead into the discussions about Group Chat implementation and migration strategies.

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This is the agenda:

1. Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Development; including features, functionality, compliance and roadmap

2. Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat API – Opportunities & limitations

3. Persistent Group Chat Migration & Implementation Strategies 

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This will be interesting as it's an open forum for many group chat "veterans" and newcomers to share ideas and knowledge and especially about moving/upgrading to the new Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 group Chat. 

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Integrate business communications now with group Chat!

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Ps. if you have any interest in the forum or want to know more about Group Chat, email info@formicary.net

ChatSeer for Microsoft OCS 2007 R2

WHEN IT COMES TO IM AND GROUP CHAT THERE ARE MANY IMPORTANT ISSUES TO CONSIDER, ESPECIALLY IN REGULATORY AND COMPLIANCE RISK.

The use of instant messaging (IM) is growing at an exponential rate and with the recent release of Microsoft’s Unified Communications (UC) suite, Office Communications Server (OCS) R2 2007, this is set to continue. While IM technologies have simplified and replaced e-mail for one-to-one conversations, chat is the natural extension for the replacement of group meetings, and a major new feature in OCS R2 2007 Group Chat.

Internet relay chat has been around for years, but the breakthrough came when innovative organisations like UBS extended that protocol to develop a persistent group chat product, resulting in a separate company called Parlano and the MindAlign product. Microsoft acquired MindAlign in 2007, and its adoption by many of the world’s largest financial institutions has shaped the functionality of Microsoft’s Group Chat, as many of those companies now plan to move to the UC platform.

When I was sales manager of Parlano in Europe, CXOs often questioned why they would need persistent group chat when they had e-mail, phones and portals. But once the penny dropped (often after a successful pilot) those same CXOs rapidly championed the concept and adopted it across the enterprise. Traders were attracted because they could create different ‘rooms’ for each market and conduct virtual meetings without leaving their desks. Group Chat offers a means of managing far-flung project teams and enabling faster, more informed investment decision making.

There are, however, important issues to consider around IM and Group Chat, especially concerning regulatory and compliance risk. IM, including persistent group chat, is subject to the same stringent compliance regulations as email. Many organisations are required to record and archive all communication data for differing retention periods in secure, tamper-proof storage facilities. They must also be able to readily retrieve the data when required for audit, compliance or e-discovery purposes, or face hefty fines for non-compliance.

Existing compliance solutions archive IM communications in e-mail format, which is not 100 per cent compatible with the persistent group chat feature. Group Chat data does not translate easily into e-mail format, so there is a possibility of data being lost, manipulated or corrupted before it reaches the secure data storage unit. Compliance officers need to know who spoke to whom and when, and the retrieval of data for e-discovery and audit purpose breaks down and becomes complex when you have a chat room with hundreds or thousands of users. Converting Group Chat into e-mail can only be achieved by putting the recipients into the body of the text. That makes reconstruction and interpretation of Group Chat conversations almost impossible and highly time consuming.

In line with the recent launch of Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat, Formicary released the latest version of ChatSeer. Unlike other compliance solutions, ChatSeer identifies and indexes all IM communication, including attachments in their native format, enabling simple, quick and precise response to discovery and litigation requests. It was built based on two top-tier global investment banks’ demand for a powerful compliance solution that would enable secure archiving and deliver fast, accurate response to all discovery requests while allowing users to communicate both internally and externally through all available channels improving collaboration, business relationships and information flow.

Some organisations may already have an archiving solution and require only a solution to store IM and Group Chat data in the same place. Others just don’t need ediscovery tools beyond the basic ones that they have. For these companies, ChatSeer Lite logs all message traffic on IM and persistent group chat, and supports the native integration of EIM message traffic, access and permission controls.

The launch of OCS R2 2007 and Group Chat spells a new and exciting phase in the development of UC. The right approach can help financial firms to rise to the challenges presented by these new technologies, and make the most of
the opportunities they offer.

Click here to read the rest of the article (PDF)

*Taken from Finance on Windows Magazine, Issue 32 Spring 2009

COLLABORATIVE GENIUS

Group Chat feature in Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007™ is one of the best-kept technology secrets in the finance industry

It is a beautiful autumn day in New York with clear skies, and it’s uncharacteristically warm. I am seated in a conference room at Microsoft’s offices in the heart of Manhattan, surrounded by many of the key managers that run the messaging platforms for top global investment banks. The event is well attended and has been anxiously anticipated, partly because of the failures and acquisitions occurring in the banking market, but more tangibly due to the question of how the group can migrate from MindAlign to Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 Group Chat Console (GCC).

The occasion was a presentation by the Unified Communications Group to a group previously known as the MindAlign Customer Forum. The discussions were principally about the upcoming launch of OCS 2007 R2 and, more importantly for those attending, how Microsoft has integrated recent acquisition Parlano and its persistent group chat solution set, MindAlign, into the OCS 2007 R2 technology stack. The group and its business managers are a testament to the savings and benefits of persistent group chat, and are keen to make sure that Microsoft integrates the new technology into OCS in a way that protects its substantial investment. This group chat technology is not just another instant messaging feature – on its own it has become the very backbone of its users’ global communications systems.

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*Taken from Finance on Windows Magazine, Issue 31 Winter 2008