Media firm Thomson Reuters has rolled out an enterprise instant messaging service to connect over 130,000 end users worldwide.

Reuters Messaging Interchange connects with other similar systems such as Cisco's Jabber XCP, IBM Lotus' Sametime and Microsoft's LCS/OCS. With the new platform, users of such systems will link 5,000 companies worldwide and add business contacts to a global external community.

"Over the past few years instant messaging has matured and become the nerve system of many financial institutions to conduct business decisions, progressively replacing email," said David Gurle, global head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters.

"Users across the enterprise will now benefit not only from instant communication with colleagues and external contacts, but from the safety of comprehensive security and compliance functionality, therefore truly tapping the full potential of IM within the corporate domain."

According to a survey carried out by IDC, instant messaging is set to overtake email as the preferred form of business communication by the second half of 2010.

But the analyst noted that, despite increasing productivity, IM can increase the risk of sensitive information leaking to the outside world.