Instant messaging (IM) systems are set to become the dominant way that businesses communicate, a new report argues.

Current, Gartner reports that around 15 per cent of businesses use IM services to keep in touch via text or voice. However, the research company predicts that this figure will rise to 95 per cent by 2011.

This communication expansion is will also mean there are greater opportunities for firms which offer IM services and products.

"The business benefits that IM can bring are considerable," explained David Mario Smith, a research analyst at Gartner.

"The ability to connect people in disparate locations by text, voice and video in one application is incredibly powerful and is equally well suited to an informal 'water cooler' atmosphere as well as more formal group communications."

"IM excels at real-time communication and this why it sits so happily alongside e-mail at the core of the communications and collaboration architecture of the future."

Recent research from Plantronics and the Henley Management College found that office workers believe that a third of the emails they deal with every day are irrelevant.