"Today, IBM's IM users average about 3 million messages per day, up from 2.5 million messages per day in 2002. The company has also seen a 4 percent reduction in telephone use, and a reduction in the load on its e-mail servers.

IBM employees communicate primarily with each other, but can also communicate with certain applications. For example, Reuss-Caton says there are several apps, including a dictionary and the corporate directory, to which users can send IM queries and receive responses. For example, if Reuss-Caton queries the database with an employee name, it would return all the employee's details, including presence awareness information telling her whether that individual is online." [Smart Mobs]