Which enterprise IM solution to choose?
 

Hello!

I need advice on enterprise IM solution. The solution should be capable to use intranet only (no communication should traverse the inernet). It would be of an advantage if it would support conferencing. And if it's possible it'd be fine if it'd be free.

One solution which comes to my mind is jabber, but I do not have any experience with it... what's your oppinion on that? What other solutions are there?

Thank you for your comments!!

Jabber
 

The name, jabber, by itself is an open source protocol for IM. It is used by Jabber-server and Jabber-client, but also by several other servers and clients. If I am not mistaken, it is the protocol used by Google for their IM solution.

I recommend it as a protocol. We set up a server for our company and tested several clients that worked very well with it, and two that looked pretty but failed in colorful and interesting ways. (About the time things were getting VERY good we were bought out by a larger corporation and the project was canned.) I found it easy to configure, generally lower bandwidth than some, and quite friendly to work with.

PS. The intranet restriction is easy to implement either at the server (allow traffic only from local private addresses), or at the firewall (if it has the ability tio block all IM packets going in or out), or using a security server or appliance like WebSense.

RE: Jabber
 

Yea, my company used Jabber exclusively for years. Then we got "acquired" by an even larger conglomerate and the new management forced us off Jabber and moved us to Microsoft Office Live Communicator... ugh... but I'd rather not talk about that! ;)

OpenFire

http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/

I use it. XMPP. Asterisk integration. Etc. Etc.

Oh. And its Free.

+1 for Jabber

Kind regards

Jabber sounds good. but just to note. When you want an app to run on intranet only whether is jabber or any other app such as web,email, and so on, it will all be manage whether it is intranet or internet by firewall.