On Tuesday 25 June 2002 12:16 pm, Christopher J. Wolff wrote:
Jane,
This brings up a good point about IM. IMHO, IM is a security risk and I am establishing a company standard where users behind the firewall are prohibited from using IM, IRC, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My opinion is that these types of programs contribute more to lack of productivity than to real problem solving.
99% agreed. I've seen more viruses float in via {insert PtP here) than I'd care to think about.
So my question for the group is, do chat programs (IM, IRC, yahoo) serve a substantial network support purpose or are they more of a distraction, allowing staff to communicate with friends, relatives, drifters, interlopers on company time?
We support a number of international clients who don't necessarily have the best English-speaking skills. In these cases we find ICQ/AIM/IRC/etc... to be a necessity. Trying to work with a customer to debug kernel compile errors via telephone from the relative un-comfort of a loud/windy datacenter in broken English does NOT work. Grant -- Grant A. Kirkwood - grant(at)tnarg.org Fingerprint = D337 48C4 4D00 232D 3444 1D5D 27F6 055A BF0C 4AED