Basic Internal Instant Messaging Solution? 155
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."
Re:Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you tried Tonic? (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Re:Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm going to go out on a limb here (Score:2, Interesting)
What are the dangers of IM? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.