Instant messages (IM) outpace SMS texting

Instant messages outpace SMS texting
Tan Weizhen
Jun 07, 2008
The Straits Times

WALK into an office these days, and chances are you will come across someone doing It: Having a little fun on the side while working.

Instant Messaging via Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, or MSN for short, has taken off in a big way here, and more and more people are logged on for hours on end, "talking" to friends and colleagues while at work.

These so-called "efficiency freaks" send 55 million messages each day - for a total of 1.6 billion a month last year.

The messages range from questions about work to the garden variety: "Makan? Can. Now? Ok, where?" sort.

Microsoft, which released these figures last week, said that there are 1.3 million users of the free service in Singapore, and they are online for an average of 12 hours a day.

The number of messages sent puts Singapore's well-documented obsession with SMS texts in the shade: Though there are six million mobile phone accounts here, just one billion text messages were sent each month last year.

While the bulk of IM users are in the 15-34 age group, there are more than a few who are as old as 60 banging away at their keyboards constantly.

The growth in Instant Messaging (IM) began three years ago, and coincided with the boom in broadband take-up rates. These connections allow users to stay online for as long as they want, without incurring extra charges.

And that is exactly what they are doing.

The average MSN user logs on as soon as he gets to the office, usually 8am, and does not stop cranking out messages till he leaves at around 6pm.

And that is not the half of it. Many users log on as soon as dinner is done, and there are more than a few who never log off, says Microsoft.

Though IM is free, users say that is not the biggest deal about it.

Take Mr David Ko, managing director of Waggener Edstrom (Asia Pacific), a global public relations firm: "MSN, and other IM tools, are the only ones that allow several simultaneous or completely separate conversations. That appeals to the efficiency freak in me."

And while a large number of people message constantly while at work, most companies contacted by The Straits Times say that they are not too concerned about any impact this might have on productivity.

But some do cast a wary eye on such practices.

Ernst & Young, for example, does not allow it.

Said Mr John Ho Chi, a partner at technology and security risk services at the auditing firm: "Such peer-to-peer networks really increase the chances of viruses, malware and other cyberthreats flowing into the office system and attacking it."

However, countered Mr Claus Mortensen of research firm IDC: "IM complements, and to some extent, even replaces, the need for e-mail. If such Web 2.0 tools get the job done more efficiently ? why should they be restricted to personal and social use?"