News Article
Instant Messaging Comes of Age for Enterprise
By Alan Field
NewsFactor Network
May 22, 2002
Digi-Net said it expects that Web developers at several large online retailers will use Hubz to let their customers exchange real-time reactions to featured products.
Instant messaging, once thought of as an Internet toy for chatty teens,
is not just for kids anymore.
Hubz, a new Java-based instant messaging product unveiled Tuesday by Gainesville,
Florida-based Digi-Net Technologies, could become a useful tool for a
wide range of enterprises that are taking to the Web to save time and
money and build a sense of community among customers and employees.
Hubz is the first application that allows customers and employees to communicate
on the Web via instant messaging without having to download or install
special plug-ins, according to Ryan Harris, Digi-Net's sales manager of
community software.
Using Hubz, visitors to a corporate Web site or intranet can immediately
see who else is visiting a given page, according to Digi-Net, even if
the visitors are not registered customers or employees. They then can
send text messages to each other, exchanging views or product reactions.
Early adopters of Hubz include the U.S. Army National Guard, which has
tested a beta version of the product on its site for the past three months,
as well as the University of Florida and Johns Hopkins University.
Digi-Net said it expects that Web developers at several large online retailers will use Hubz to let their customers exchange real-time reactions to featured products.
Saving Big Money
In addition to letting customers exchange views about products and services
online, Hubz is designed to let enterprises substitute instant messaging
for e-mail in many situations.
For example, using Hubz, managers at corporate headquarters could determine
which customers or managers around the world were online, and could send
those people an instant message.
Harris said he expects instant messaging will be especially popular with
managers of global corporations, who often struggle to overcome language
barriers in phone conversations.
According to Harris, "Instant messages can replace costly international
long-distance calls."
ASP Option
Hubz is available either as a full-service license installed on an enterprise's
server, or as an application service provider (ASP) model that runs on
Digi-Net's server. Either way, the cost for setting up the service on
one site for 100 users is US$199. The annual service fee is $49.
The National Guard site has an unlimited user license, with an option
to upgrade to multiple servers if traffic demands.
Hubz is one of three components in a suite of products from Digi-Net. Companies that employ Hubz can integrate it with Digi-Net's corporate chat product, Digi-Chat, currently used by Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW), Boeing (NYSE: BA), the Denver Broncos and other Fortune 500 enterprises.
Membership Database
Businesses also can choose to deploy Digi-Net's Membership Database to collect and manage information about the customers and employees who are exchanging messages on their pages that use Hubz.
Membership Database has a MySQL freeware database, but it also can be used with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) SQL Server and Oracle databases, provided the enterprise downloads free drivers from Microsoft or Oracle, Digi-Net said.
Digi-Net said its DigiChat product currently is used on 10,000 Web sites in 30 countries.
