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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."
net send
as in: C:\> net send [user] [text]
or: C:\> net send [computer] [text]
It's more than enough for messages of the "Call me when you get a chance" variety. Anything more usually belongs in an email anyway.
On an unrelated note, this is handy if the professor's computer displaying the lecture on very large screen is also connected to the campus network and you want to put "Bob smells" up over his presentation.
Sharing.
Sharing your request with eveyone in your segment.
Sharing your answers with everyone who may benefit.
Making a request of a shared pool of resources
Being able to get a choice of answers
Getting an immediate answer from whoever is both capable and available
Enough?
Cmdean