Which is the best LAN messenger?

Question

I want to find out the best LAN messenger, free if possible, even purchased is not an issue, but should have good chat features for corporate environment.

If it can support voice without compromising on LAN & WAN speeds, will be great.

Thank you in advance for your inputs.

Answer 1

Softros LAN messenger is very handy tool, our techies installed it in our office. Server is not required, an internet connection isn't required. Chat and messaging work fine.It just works, recommend this one.

But I dunno anything about voice, it isn't important for me.

Answer 2

The one and only one that I use at work and has worked very well for a freeware program is called FOMINE WINPOPUP.



Here is the address:



http://www.fomine.com/winpopup.html



This application will support WAN and LAN systems.



The only thing is that all of your computer systems need to have a name for each computer, which in this case most of them do.



This is the one that I use in our corporate enviroment. It is a little different program but to get a message across the system, this is better than using NETSEND anyday.



The best thing is that there is no extra bells and whistles that you will find on other messengers like MSN messenger and yahoo messenger.

Answer 3

Must it be over LAN? Skype is a very good client, offering excellent chat, chat groups, and voice chat, and it connects very effectively. I'm not sure - but if two computers are on a LAN, it might skip the Skype servers all together and connect directly (it does things like this as much as possible to reduce load on their servers, to keep it free.)



If you absolutely must keep everything internal, look into Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC servers can be set up on your own server, then anyone with any number of IRC clients can use it, but only on your LAN. It has no voice support, though.



I'll include a few quick links I found on IRC.

Answer 4

AIM is a decent. There are some IP relay one I'm sure you could find through google also.