"Inside" type of messenger

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Hello all.

Where I work we want to install for the Mac computers some sort of messenger that would only communicate the people inside the company.

Is there a free software capable of doing so?

Thanks!!
 

cwa107


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Hello all.

Where I work we want to install for the Mac computers some sort of messenger that would only communicate the people inside the company.

Is there a free software capable of doing so?

Thanks!!

Sounds like you're looking for an Instant Messaging application that works solely within your local network. If you don't want the application to be hosted by public IM servers, you would need to set up a server application in addition to the client software. That is not an inexpensive proposition.

If yours is a small company, your best bet would be to sign up with one of the public IM services like AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ or MSN Messenger. Once you've established accounts, a good free IM client is Adium. Adium can connect to just about any of the major services out there. With that said, if your IT department (assuming you have one) has a robust firewall, they may need to open avenues to these public IM servers.
 
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If they are all Macs and all on the same network couldn't he just use iChat with Bonjour?
If the Macs are not on the same lan I'd go with cwa's suggestion.
 
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I have a link to a company that makes a corporate IM that works on the Mac, Windows and I think Linux as well. I have the URl at work, if I forget to post it Friday drop me a PM to remind me. I am considering it for the office.
 

cwa107


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If they are all Macs and all on the same network couldn't he just use iChat with Bonjour?
If the Macs are not on the same lan I'd go with cwa's suggestion.

Sure, but the server is still external, as it would be with just about any other IM protocol.
 

cwa107


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I have a link to a company that makes a corporate IM that works on the Mac, Windows and I think Linux as well. I have the URl at work, if I forget to post it Friday drop me a PM to remind me. I am considering it for the office.

Keep in mind, he's looking for "free" software. Anything that runs internally is going to need to have a host server in addition to the client software, that's going to cost some money.
 
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If you set up your own Jabber server you will have exactly what you need. I recently set this up for the company that I work for...

http://igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire

Free to use, but some plugins won't work if you do not buy/pay for them. The basic jabber server works for free tho

And this will work on Windows, Mac and Linux.
 
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Here is the one I have found, its not free, but worth looking at as you consider all your options. I tried a few out at work that were "free" and found them next to worthless. LAN Messenger
 
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Here is the one I have found, its not free, but worth looking at as you consider all your options. I tried a few out at work that were "free" and found them next to worthless. LAN Messenger


I guess you must be doing something wrong...the free/open source stuff seems to work pretty good for me, and the 400 other users in our company who use it via chat client and/or web client on our LAN and over VPN (heck, I even tied it into Active Directory for single sign on). And the last time I checked, google was using jabber for google talk :)
 
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Sure, but the server is still external, as it would be with just about any other IM protocol.
Actually if you're using Bonjour, there is no server. It's all peer to peer.

That's why Bonjour also works if your internet connection is down.
 

cwa107


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Actually if you're using Bonjour, there is no server. It's all peer to peer.

That's why Bonjour also works if your internet connection is down.

Nice, I did not know that.
 

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