December 10, 2001 (Bellevue,
Wash.) - A new technology platform that facilitates
communications between enterprises and customers
via Instant Messaging has been unveiled today by
Cordant™ Inc., a Bellevue, Washington-based
software company founded by instant messaging pioneer
Sonu Aggarwal.
Aggarwal holds the patent for the first-ever enterprise
Instant Messaging product, which was acquired by
Microsoft® and formed the basis of the Microsoft
Exchange Instant Messaging technology. Aggarwal
led the Microsoft Exchange Instant Messaging team
before starting Cordant late last year.
The new patent-pending Cordant Enterprise Server™
platform is aimed at the growing Instant Messaging
(IM) market, which industry analysts expect will
surpass e-mail as the primary online communications
tool by 2005. Instant messaging allows businesses
and individuals to communicate with each other online
in real-time, in much the way the telephone enables
them to communicate by voice.
The Cordant Enterprise Server will form the platform
for a series of products from Cordant designed to
help enterprises utilize Instant Messaging, particularly
as they relate to customer communications. Its first
product to be unveiled as part of the platform,
IMScribe™, is targeted specifically at Microsoft
Exchange users, and enables enterprises to log,
archive, view and monitor Microsoft Exchange Instant
Messaging communications.
"In just
the way the telephone first revolutionized business
communications in the 20th century, we believe that
Instant Messaging will help transform the way businesses
and customers communicate with each other in the
21st," said Aggarwal. "IMScribe represents
the first component of our Enterprise Server platform
that we believe will help make this vision a reality."
IMScribe is a sophisticated product designed
to meet critical business needs of large enterprises,
particularly in financial services, where the
SEC requires brokerage firms to retain customer
communications for six years. IMScribe enables
enterprises meet these requirements by enabling
the archiving, retrieving and monitoring all Instant
Messaging traffic. IMScribe thus extends Exchange
Instant Messaging, whose robust capabilities exclude
being able to natively archive IM traffic.
"Cordant is pursuing a vision that I believe
could dramatically increase adoption of IM functionality
in the enterprise," said Michael D. Osterman,
the principal of Osterman Research, a market research
firm that helps organizations understand the markets
for messaging, directory and related products
and services. "Cordant's offering, which
is aimed at the enterprise market, could have
an important impact on the enterprise customer
service industry. It has the potential to reduce
customer service costs and improve the customer
service experience for end users."
IMScribe features a three-tiered scalable architecture
designed for production IM environments and servers,
and is particularly suitable for global deployments.
IMScribe has been designed in conjunction with
enterprise customers across several industries,
and has undergone beta testing at more than ten
Fortune 500 organizations.
Founded in late 2000, Cordant Inc. is a privately
held company specializing in the enterprise Instant
Messaging market. Its founder, Sonu Aggarwal,
holds several patents relating to IM, including
the first-ever patent for enterprise Instant Messaging.
He also is co-author of numerous Instant Messaging
specifications, including the Internet Engineering
Task Force's RFC 2779, "Requirements for
an Instant Messaging/Presence Protocol."
More information can be obtained at the company's
Web site at www.cordant.com
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