Real-time communications capability is a distinct competitive advantage for any enterprise. For employees 'Presence Information' about their contacts, makes these communications targeted, efficient, cost effective, and secured. Consequently, IM has become a core competency in which enterprises are willing to invest.

However, major irregualrities involving prominent companies have come to light, many through leaks of archived emails and other business records. Various Governments and regulatory bodies are enforcing use of archiving of communications, business records and documents, and management controls and audits of business conduct.

"In Civilized life, law floats in  a sea of ethics."

Earl Warren 1891-1974

American Chief Justice

Several regulations have been enacted recently to strengthen ethical business practices, corporate governance and restore investor confidence,  as follows. These regulations require "Archiving and WORM’ing" of all communications (including instant messaging) regarding business activity.
  -For financial industry: SEC regulations 17a-4, NASD 3010, NYSE
  -For pharmaceuticals/healthcare: (HIPAA),
  -other regulations for Petrochemical, Oil and Energy industries.
  -Sarbanes-Oxley Act

A set of new rules, that have taken effect from Dec 1, 2006, require U.S. companies to keep better track of their employees' e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents in the event the companies are sued, as per some legal experts. They are part of amendments to federal rules governing civil litigation and were approved by the Supreme Court's administrative arm in April 2006 after a five-year review.

More on Self Regulation and Compliance...

Microsoft Office Live Communications Servers 2003 and 2005 offer both instant messaging capability and presence information. However, both of these, and even Exchange 2000 IM lack "out-of-the-box" functionality and do not provide a GUI, for monitoring and reporting of 'IM Activity' or 'Presence Statistics'. Monitoring of instant messaging activity is recommended for every IM deployments. Cordant's IMScribe®, IMConsole 2003/ 2005 assist in such monitoring, generate rich reports and statistics and help an enterprise to improve ROI in its real-time communications technology.

Cordant’s customers include several Fortune 500 companies and other SMBs in diverse sectors such as pharmaceutical, insurance, financial services, medical services and research. 

For further reading on this subject click here ...

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Office Communications Server 2007: 

Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 has been relased recently and is Microsoft's  first product to combine enterprise-ready IM (instant messaging), presence, conferencing, and VoIP (Voice over IP) telephony in a fully integrated unified communications solution. Office Communications Server 2007 provides richer presence capabilities, enhanced support for group IM, and improved deployment and management than its predecessor, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 SP1. 

Besides features such as federation and public IM connectivity, Office Communications Server 2007also includes real-time conferencing hosted on servers inside your organization’s firewall and a full-featured, software-powered VoIP solution that can stand on its own or integrate easily with an existing PBX infrastructure.

Unify² Success Leads to New Consulting Talent and Global Expansion with Operations in Bonn, Germany

Consulting Firm Significantly Deepens its Bench with Patent Holders, Noted Authors, and Some of the Foremost Experts in Unified Communications Integration, Consulting and Deployment

BELLEVUE, WA -- Mar 12, 2009 -- Unify Square, the most specialized consulting firm in Unified Communications (UC) and Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS), has expanded its global presence with operations in Bonn, Germany, led by European Managing Director Jochen Kunert, one of the pioneers in enterprise Voice technology and noted author on Microsoft OCS. In addition to global expansion, Unify Square continues to broaden its management team, with some of the UC industry's top innovators, engineers and consultants.

ENTERPRISE OCS 2007 CUSTOMERS  

Through our comprehensive partnership with Unify Square, Inc. our team can help your enterprise plan, architect and deploy OCS with confidence, in the context of your own unique business needs and IT architecture.  Find out how we can help you with:

• Strategy

• Architecture

• Deployment

• Interoperability

For further details about any of Cordant's Products or services please contact us via e-mail sales@cordant.com, or ussales@unifysquare.com or at toll free phone: 1-866-354-1925. From Outside US call Director of Sales at Tel # 001-425-865-0710

Corporate Ethics

SEC Probing Zale Accounts

By ANN ZIMMERMAN, Oct 31, 2009, Wall Street Journal

Zale Corp. said Friday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the jewelry retailer's expense accounting after it restated its 2008 and 2009 earnings.

The company revealed the SEC investigation during its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call, which it had postponed for more than a month. It said a year-end financial audit uncovered internal control and accounting issues. The biggest issue, the company said, involved a failure to record some advertising costs,which required a $9 million adjustment to profits in 2009…

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IM in the Mainstream

Electronic Multitaskers Not Really ‘Information Gods’

By Rob Waters, Aug. 24 2009,  Bloomberg

Multitaskers who jump from text messaging to scanning computer screens to watching videos, all while listening to their iTunes, remember less of what they read or see than people who do one thing at a time, a study found...

Tech Today: Twitter as Business Tool, More

By Wall Street Journal Staff

Tech Today gathers all the biggest technology news of the morning’s Wall Street Journal into one place for your reading pleasure...

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HIPAA

Disclosure by Surgeon Is Faulted

By DAVID ARMSTRONG and THOMAS M. BURTON, Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2009

Washington University said a surgeon accused by the U.S. Army of falsifying a study favorable to Medtronic Inc. failed to tell the school he had a paid consulting arrangement with the medical-device maker...

Health-Care Reform

HIPAA Security Rule Delegated by Secretary to OCR

Compliance Home, August 4, 2009

The Director of OCR has been delegated the authority to administer and enforce the HIPAA Security Rule by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced OCR. With this action of Secretary Sebelius, HHS’ ability to protect individuals’ health information by combining ...

Business Intelligence

In Antibribery Law, Some Fear Inadvertent Chill on Business

By DIONNE SEARCEY, Wall Street Journal, Aug 6 , 2009

The federal government in recent years has dramatically stepped up its pursuit of overseas bribery by corporations. The assault on corruption has spanned five continents and delivered steep fines -- $800 million in one case alone...