Hi,

At the office we currently use realpopup. But it has several drawbacks. It's not too userfriendly, works only on the current subnet and is windows only.

I need a program that would work over different subnets/VPN's. Run on Win98(¤&#¤%), WinXP and linux desktops and would be easy to set up for client machines.

The new app will probably require a central server (linux ofc.), no problem with that.

There should be somekind of group support. If I add an user, he/she should immidiately see his/her coworkers in the list and be able to send messages to them. There are three offices/subnets, but less than 50 users. So there can be only one or three groups then.

Any user should also be able to announce stuff, that is send a message to the whole group or all groups.

I'm checking out jabber right now. GAIM would be a good client. I could even create a small how-to for the users on how to use GAIM instead of MSN Messenger at the same time with internal jabber.

Wildfire seems to be a good server, any comments on it?

Does anybody have experience with such a setup using jabber? Or any other implementation.

Any hints and general directions appreciated,
Alex

Why not use irc? All clients could log in to the server using xchat or some such irc client. All clients logged in would be able to see all other clients and chat publically or initiate 1:1 chats. This is what we do at work.

I've considered IRC and it sure has it's cons.

But I think a more IM style messeging system would fit more. If there's an announcement then everybody gets a _popup_ in the corner of their screen. That's possible with IRC clients, but another thing to configure on the end client.

Don't get me wrong, I personally have used IRC for years and prefer it to IM's anytime, but most users are more familiar with a IM's and it kind of fits better here.

Simplicity is important.

If your using KDE it has a built-in Network Chat.

Messages popup in konsole. Never used it just noticed that it was there.

KDE Control Center>Network>Network Chat