Verizon Business today launched a Hosted Secure Instant Messaging Service, designed so enterprises can allow their employees to use real-time IM communications without incurring viruses, malware or other business-threatening consequences.

The new service, adding to the Verizon Business hosted service portfolio, recognizes the fact that IM communications is already pervasive, said Rick Dyer, director of IT Solutions product management for Verizon Business. Fifty-four percent of enterprises say their companies are using IM, according to research by The Radicati Group in mid-2005. The Gartner Group has projected that by 2010, 90% of those with business email accounts will have business IM as well.

“For the IT department, this can be a real headache, because of the potential for viruses and spam and other consequences,” Dyer said. “The goal of this service is to address their number one problem with IM communications, which is security. This will also let IT managers gain control over how IM systems are used in the workplace.”

The IM environment is complicated by the fact that there are multiple commercial IM services which enterprise employees may be using.

Verizon is offering two options as part of Hosted Secure Instant Messaging – one creates an intra-company IM system using Microsoft Office Communicator and another provides management and control of public IM networks. Customers can choose one or the other, or both, Dyer said.

In each case, the IM communications traverse servers within Verizon Business’ data center, to enable use management and policy enforcement.

The Enterprise Instant Messaging option will use Microsoft Live Communications Server technology, housed within the Verizon Business data center and Microsoft Office Communicator client to provide and end-to-end hosted IM service, which can be tied into hosted email to provide single corporate identity service. Chat between users is encrypted, Dyer said, and there are other user efficiencies.

“There is a corporate directory that can be easily searched,” he said. “If you receive an email from a colleague, it’s possible to determine that that person is online and initiate a chat session that avoids a long email thread. And you can communicate with up to 30 different people in a single session.”

The Managed Public IM Service manages employee use of commercial IM systems, such as those provided by AOL, Yahoo! and MSN, when employees are at work, behind the corporate firewall. All IM communications are routed through a Verizon server to eliminate viruses and worms, and protect from spim – the IM version of spam – as well as to police inappropriate employee behaviors, through policy management.

“When IM becomes part of corporate communications, companies have to worry about harassment and other issues,” Dyer said. By using search capabilities for specific terms, such as foul language, companies can better ensure that IM use is appropriate.

The policy-based management uses content filtering and blocking and can create customized legal disclaimers to accompany corporate communications.

The services are priced on a per-set basis at $5.95 per user, per month for Enterprise IM, and $3.50 per user, per month for Managed Public IM, with volume discounts available.

A Web-based administration tool also enables IT departments to distribute the management of the hosted IM services to individual corporate departments, Dyer said.

“This relieves their workload and frees up their resources for other things,” he said.