Tired of taking yet another meeting or wasting more time on more conference calls? Maybe it is time you tried group online chat. While far from a new technology, its popularity around the enterprise is finally taking off because it can deliver real bottom-line returns and can be a real productivity boost. Chat is just part of the overall trend towards better real-time communications that began when corporations moved first to voice mail instead of secretaries, then to email, and finally towards Instant Messaging (IM).

In this story for Techweb, I talk more about how chat is taking hold and why enterprise IT managers are attracted to it. The story was picked up for the print Information Week edition as well.