IM software integration and bots player Instant Technologies is now the proud owner of Principle Software's IMtegrity offering, in a move that expands its reach into the hot -- and competitive -- area of instant messaging security.

Beverly, Mass.-based Instant Technologies earned a name for itself based on a product that enabled users to integrate IBM Lotus Sametime instant messaging into the Microsoft Outlook e-mail client -- a boon for companies that haven't standardized on either IBM Lotus or Microsoft. Early this year, Instant Technologies moved into the interactive agent, or "bot," space with Instant Agent Framework -- a toolkit enabling IT departments to construct IM-based, natural-language or menu-driven front-ends to databases or enterprise apps.

Adding IMtegrity 3.12 to the mix now gives Instant Technologies a footing in the IM security realm -- which is proving one of the major drivers of enterprise IM solutions. IMtegrity, developed by Cambridge, Mass.-based Principle, enables customers to audit and log instant messaging sessions from AOL Instant Messenger, Lotus Sametime (now called Lotus Instant Messaging) and, accordingly, the recently launched Lotus Workplace Team Collaboration 1.1.

"For Principle, their focus has been on things like IBM WebSphere portal," said Carl Tyler, Instant Technologies' chief technology officer and, incidentally, a developer of IMtegrity while working at Principle in 2001. "This product had less of a coherent feel for them, and we had the opportunity to take this off their hands."

"For us, the timing is great," he added. "We recognized that Sametime is picking up even more than it was a year or so ago. And companies are realizing that as they deploy it, they need a way to track [IM] for regulatory compliance."

IMtegrity enables admins to log all AIM or Lotus IM activity, analyze IM usage, and also set up keywords to flag restricted words or phrases. Additionally, it authenticates users logging onto the AIM service against corporate LDAP directory entries. It also inserts customizable corporate disclaimers into AIM sessions.

IM security, logging, and auditing has become important as businesses are increasingly realizing that instant messaging conversations are covered under regulatory guidelines -- such as those from the Securities and Exchange Commission or the National Association of Securities Dealers, and in legislation like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Sarbanes-Oxley and Graham-Leach-Bliley.

While the new capabilities give Instant Technologies an entree into one of the most sought-after fields in enterprise IM software, it also puts the firm into direct competition with larger, deep-pocketed players like IMlogic, FaceTime Communications, and Akonix Systems, which specialize in IM logging and management.

For its part, however, Instant Technologies isn't especially worried. Instead, it sees its value in being able to provide a suite of solutions ranging from IM administration to applications that ride on an IM implementation, such as bots.

The acquisition "lets us extend our offerings, from Outlook integration and interactive agents down to the compliance and regulatory offerings that people require as well," Tyler said. "It kind of gives us a foot in each door."

To reinforce that proposition, Instant Technologies is planning additional tools that augment and build off of enterprises' Lotus IM deployments.

In coming months, the company will unveil a management application for Lotus Sametime, designed to assist admins in migrating user information from Domino to an LDAP directory.

It also will provide centralized control over users' contact lists -- enabling IT to add bots or other contacts to groups of employees in one fell swoop; it could also perform global search-and-replace on usernames, preventing users from disappearing from colleagues' contact lists if their username is changed. (For example, after changing a name thorough marriage.)

Additionally, the company is working on a customer support product that offers Web front-ends to Sametime sessions and message queuing and routing. It's also working on a tool that adds Lotus IM presence and messaging to Microsoft Office 2003.

Meanwhile, Instant Technologies is working to add compatibility with Microsoft Live Communications Server to its Instant Agent Framework, and to expand the number of the toolkits' supported databases. At the same time, it's also planning a centralized management console for all of a company's bots.

"It's an exciting time ... and we think that we have offerings that go across peoples' needs," Tyler said.

Christopher Saunders is managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.com.