AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo, and MSN Messenger are all great services. I have used them to stay in touch with friends over the years. In recent years a number of developments have bugged me:

1. Spammers have dug in and truly become a nuisance.
2. Spambots exist.
3. In a sense I have more contacts then I need, to the point where I can’t keep up with everyone – or remember everyone.
4. Too many people have my screen name so I have to go “invisible” to get anything done sometimes – unfortunately what that means is I sometimes miss the people I need to speak to while trying to avoid the people who would waste my time.
5. Security. I simply do not trust them for sending files or anything similar.
6. Advertising is quite obnoxious.

I could list more complaints – and I am not bashing the services because I use them extensively due to all of my friends being on them. I would never, however, consider using them for business purposes for all of the reasons I listed above.

Time is valuable during the work day and so I do not want friends – or others – bothering me or distracting me in any way possible. I don’t want to see flashing ads while trying to communicate with a client or deal with spammers.

Perhaps most importantly I want security which is why I use Brosix Enterprise Messaging. Brosix is a small, independent company but they have been winning awards and racking up clients left and right. Their customer service is excellent and perhaps most importantly their networks are completely secure and hosted for you.

That is why I would recommend using Brosix at work and the rest at home if needed.

SMEs strive to survive the global credit crunch

It has now been officially acknowledged – the world is facing a serious economic setback; inflation is rising and the future seems unclear. Companies try to react and cut costs accordingly in order to be able to survive the harsh reality. But what can you do if you are not the size of GM and cannot afford to cut 10% of a 40,000-strong workforce? Small and medium-sized businesses seem very limited in terms of the savings that they are able to make.

Not necessarily, a new survey shows. It studied over 200 SMEs around the world, 73% of which stated that they have at least partially managed to cut costs in response to the global financial crisis. Here are some of the conclusions from this survey:

• Increased fuel and commodity costs have affected 80% of the small and medium-sized enterprises and has forced them to change their business practices.
• 73% of the firms have taken countermeasures, such as reducing office premises and introducing flexi hours, hot-desking, and home working.
• As a result, more people prefer to work from home and thus save transport costs.

While home working (also known as ‘telecommuting’) has often been referred to as the future of business, the present economic situation has accelerated the process and a growing number of professionals prefer to stay at home and work from there.

A recent development that has helped this process is the widespread popularity of the so-called ‘corporate instant messaging’. While phone and e-mail are still preferred means of business communication, instant messengers especially designed to meet the needs of businesses with many telecommuters or remote partners and clients are gaining widespread popularity, as they prove to be faster, cheaper, and more efficient that both phone and e-mail.

Brosix Corporate Instant Messenger is one of the most popular such solutions that were recently introduced and that a growing number of SMEs are now using. Brosix is a powerful and easy-to-use instant messenger which allows clients to create their own business instant messaging networks and organize a complete user selection which can be managed through an online control panel.

By using a corporate IM such as Brosix, firms can ensure the authenticity of network users and rely on highly secure communication for strict and confidential business purposes – which is indeed the main difference between a business IM and a free public messenger such as ICQ or MSN. Thus, SMEs get an optimized work process with additional features.

Brosix was founded in 2006 to develop simple, easy-to-use, secure communication tools for home and enterprises. Brosix goal is to enable people and organizations to benefit from innovative instant messaging and other Internet technologies without making substantial investments in hardware, software and infrastructure.