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Basic Internal Instant Messaging Solution?
sk8dork asks: "I am pretty much _the_ internal IT person at the company I work for and I am recognizing the need for internal Instant Messaging more and more each day. While email is quick and easy to send, it's not always the quickest way to get your message to someone when they're not monitoring their inbox every second of the day. Having come from a position in Dell tech support I've experienced the MS communications solution but was put off by the instability of it and, now that I've looked into purchasing it, the steep price as well. For more stability we often used an internal IRC channel, but most people would either not login or they'd just be put off by its complexity. In this new company, where close to no one is 'computer savvy', I am in need of an Instant Messaging solution that is easy to use, secure, limited to our network, and inexpensive. I'd like to stay away from the mainstream IM clients such as Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ and others. We're running Windows Server 2003 for Small Business (sorry) and will be soon upgrading out of the SBE to regular Windows Server 2003. Any helpful information will be greatly appreciated."
I recommend giving the IRC servers you have now a try, but use Gaim to access them. It works very well and is very familiar to most users who use other IM clients at home.
Have you tried Tonic?
We use it at work for instant messenging. It has a number of features similar to MSN/ICQ, etc but its LAN only and best of all its free!
We have about 60 users online and the performance is very good.
Their latest beta builds are improving nicely with features such as multichat so hopefully a new version will be released soon.
While I also suggest using some sort of local jabber server with Gaim, it'd probably be a good idea to install some sort of encryption plugin, like Off The Record, to make sure no one's intercepting conversations from the inside of the network even.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
and suggest a (gasp!) commercial solution. Not free, but supported: Sametime. Commercially supported by IBM/Lotus, fully secure, with a built-in web conferencing system, and works on your Windows 2003 server. Can be completely stand-alone, or you can have it authenticate to your company's LDAP directory. The nice thing is you buy only the number of clients you need, with no need to purchase server software. Clients are $47.59/user, and allows you to use the stand-alone Sametime Connect client (Windows, Mac or a Trillian Pro plugin), the browser-based chat client, or connect via your Blackberry if you're already using their Enterprise server 4.1 or later.
What should one watch out for in IM clients like MSN? My daughter started using that, but I never have.
I warned her about fake links in emails and fake email senders, and showed her how easy it is to send a mail
From: Saddam Hussein <president@whitehouse.gov>
(After which we played a while sending fake emails to her friends, seeming to come from other friends, teachers, etc. so for email, I think she and her friends got the message... Next exercise will be to spoof the school web site)
But having no experience with IM, I don't know against what to warn her, much less how to demonstrate it.