LAN instant messaging/chat/file sharing software?

[joe4324]

Hello, Ive been trying to find a peice of software that we can use on our Local area network here at work. We are trying to find sometype of IM software that will allow us to chat/message/file share locally without having to suck up a bunch of internet bandwidth. I've been doing google searches for quite a while and everything I seem to find costs quite a bit of money for the amount of users that we are probably going to be having use this. I would estimate around 300 users MAX.

We are trying to justify Lotus Sametime, but its quite expensive and hasnt given us much luck on our current configuration. I heard that the guy from Nullsoft wrote something that worked very well for this but AOL made him take it offline hours after it was posted. There is a new version of winpopup but it looks pretty basic and its expensive.

Are any of you using some type of similar software? and if so how does it work, how much did it cost and were can I check it out!

Thanks!

 

[Nohr]

The Nullsoft program you mentioned is called Waste. It does what you're asking but I don't know if it would be appropriate for a business. It's not perfect and I don't know if anyone is currently working on development. There's also the legality issue.

 

[joe4324]

eeek, I didnt know that. OK well no WASTE for me hehe. I just dont understand why AOL doesnt want that to be published. It sounds like a great peice of software...

Arg, any ideas? I dont think I will be able to get any peice of software to fly that uses the net, We are pretty bandwidth limited here and anything that makes that issue worse is not going to fly.

 

[edmicman]

take a look at Jabber...it sounds like what you're looking for, but the free one only appears to run on Linux. I, too, am trying to find a simple IM app to run on our LAN. We don't really run any linux servers and at this point we aren't going to set one up just for an in house IM server. Maybe I'll take a look at WASTE and see if maybe that would work. I'd be interested in any other Windows based IM setups, too.

 

[igowerf]

At work, we used RealPopup. It's free, but I don't know if it supports file sharing.

 

[joe4324]

interesting I will have to check out realpopup. specifically it would be nice to find something that allowed multiple selectable chat rooms so that we could say have the engineering team in one and the drafters in another, with some sort of master view, (kinda like these forums) you could also say IM someone directly.

any ideas?

 

[exx1976]

I don't know what you're currently using for servers or email or anything, but Exchange 2000 has this functionality built right into it, and it works GREAT... The UI is the same as MSN messener..

 

[MrChad]

AFAIK most of the major IM clients (MSN, AOL, Yahoo) offer enterprise server software for managed chat clients.

 

[joe4324]

MSN messenger would make a natural choice really but unfortunately I think it equates with "non work related chat" too much to be sucessful (unless I can convince them otherwise) When you say enterprise based 'versions' are we saying ones that run on the local area network? or will they still suck up bandwidth by using M$ servers?

Seems like what I'm looking for quite a few other people are looking for the same thing, Assuming that freeware that will do what I want doesnt exist, What kinds of prices should I expect to pay for a 100 user license for a similar peice of software and what software's are some of you using? If it is really really good it might not be that hard to justify, I dont know we will have to see.