LONDON, ON, Sept. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- While communications titans Microsoft and Google are reportedly showing interest in potentially investing millions in social networking site Facebook, a recent survey by Info-Tech Research Group shows that enterprises are still evenly divided on whether such sites should be available to their employees during working hours.
"Popularity of social networking sites has grown exponentially, but acceptance by businesses of employees accessing these sites has not," said Darin Stahl, research lead with Info-Tech Research Group. "There's still resistance in half of those surveyed to making these sites available at work - even though many employees already have the ability to connect to non-business oriented sites via the Internet."
The Info-Tech survey conducted over the summer shows an almost even 50/50 split in businesses that block access to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and those that allow or encourage access. Enterprises opposed to employees having access during working hours have three main concerns: employee productivity; potential security breaches; and access to inappropriate content. On the plus side for business is the ability to recruit on-line and verify employee resume claims, the survey indicates.
The alleged interest by Microsoft and Google in making sizeable investments in Facebook underscores the impact the site has had in the marketplace to date. A stake in Facebook could give either company increased opportunity to associate their services with activities like Web search and email accessed by Facebook clients.
"With some 69 million people worldwide connecting through Facebook in the month of August, we see demand for access to social networking sites growing exponentially, whether from work, home or mobile devices," said Stahl.
Increased volume of social networking connections from places of business will strain enterprise networks, Stahl added. IT networks are faced with potential bottlenecks in the coding of messages being transmitted, something that can impact the speed and efficiency of enterprise networks.
"Info-Tech has been advising our clients against enabling social networking for that reason," Stahl said. "Clearly the next challenge for enterprise IT will be to find or develop technical workarounds that will support the inevitable increased demand for access."
About Info-Tech Research Group
With a paid membership of over 21,000 worldwide, Info-Tech Research Group(http://www.infotech.com/) is the global leader in providing tactical, practical Information Technology research and analysis. Info-Tech has a ten-year history of delivering quality research and is one of North America's fastest growing full-service IT analyst firms.
Info-Tech Research Group
