As I said in the opening chapter, Instant Messaging is an alternate line of enterprise communication, along with electronic ones such as email and traditional ones such as the telephone. Some critical tasks require instant notification and nothing beats IM when it comes to time-critical alerts.
For example, most critical server software applications, especially the ones facing outwards on to the Internet, are configured to send an email to the admin in case of an emergency—for example, a break-in attempt, abnormal shutdown, hardware failure, and so on. You can configure Openfire to route these messages to you as an IM, if you're online. If you're a startup that only advertises a single [email protected] email address which is read by all seven employees of the company, you can configure Openfire to send IMs to all of you when the VCs come calling!
Setting this up isn't an issue if you have the necessary settings handy. The email alert service connects to the email...