By John Fontana
September 6, 2004

There is a killer on the loose under the covers of instant messaging, and no, it isn't malicious; it's a killer application that has the potential to revolutionize the way companies collaborate and communicate.

The killer app is presence. IM users see evidence of it every day in their buddy lists as a little icon that shows someone is online. But down the road, experts say, presence will separate itself from IM and evolve into a network service tapped by applications and corporate communication services, including telephony.

"In the future, presence will be the underlying [network] capability, and IM will just be one of the apps that takes advantage of that," says Melanie Turek, an analyst with Nemertes Research. "Presence is the killer app."

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