Thomson Reuters has
launched a single-link instant messaging platform for
businesses.
The
Reuters
Messaging (RM) Interchange service allows enterprise instant
messaging (EIM) users to connect and communicate with colleagues
and counterparts by using one link, regardless of corporate or
technology boundaries, as with e-mail or telephone calls.
RM Interchange is the first global instant messaging hub that
connects Thomson Reuters RM with the leading EIM systems - Cisco's
Jabber XCP, IBM Lotus' Sametime and Microsoft's LCS/OCS.
Users of these systems, the largest in the EIM space, can now
connect with over 5,000 external organisations and add their
business contacts to a global external community.
Unlike existing federation gateways, RM Interchange is the first
to enable businesses worldwide to federate without the need to
establish individual links between them.
To interconnect hundreds or thousands of different instant
messaging customers can be a time consuming venture for an
organisation's IT department.
With the Reuters Messaging Interchange service, businesses can
now reach over IM a multitude of other companies with a single
link.
The ability to communicate instantly and to display a presence
indicating users' availability to communicate has made IM a
successful communication tool.
RM Interchange offers carrier-grade connectivity for IM across
the corporate community, delivering a secure and reliable hub for
businesses across all sectors, including finance, legal and
healthcare.
Customers connecting to RM Interchange are also automatically
connected to the Reuters Messaging community, including over
130,000 end-users in 5,000 firms worldwide, and will be listed on
the inter-company community directory enabling users to quickly
find counterparts, potentially creating the world's largest
business IM community.
David Gurle, global head of collaboration services at Thomson
Reuters, said, "The sharing of accurate and timely market
information is never more vital than at times of heightened
economic volatility.
"Over the last few years IM has matured and become the nerve
system of many financial institutions to conduct business
decisions, progressively replacing email. However, corporate IM
deployments have not yet fully used their potential to enable their
users to reach their counterparts and customers in other
organisations."