Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (XCP) 2.5 | Gordano Messaging Suite 8.02 | Microsoft Exchange 2000 Instant Messaging Service | Ipswitch Instant Messenger 1.0
Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (XCP) 2.5
Jabber's XCP is the only IM server we tested that runs on Linux or Solaris. Although the client interface is simple, there's no easy administration interface. You have to edit an XML file manually in a text editor to make changes, a process that makes playing with sendmail configs on a Saturday night seem fun.
The client interface, called the Jabber Messenger, has strong privacy and control features, such as a unique contact list confirmation requirement. If you want to add a user to your buddy list, the other user must approve it.
Jabber lets users broadcast messages and alerts, but lacks polls and surveys. Chat rooms are not moderated, but you can create private and protected rooms, as well as public rooms that appear in a list for users to browse. You can create "available," "away" and "do not disturb" status messages; we could not send messages or alerts to
any user in "do not disturb" mode. Users can also integrate weather, ESPN and ABC News reports into the Jabber Messenger. Access to public IM networks (AOL, Yahoo, MSN) is available through an open-source gateway.
You can customize message logs to include whatever data you want or don't want, including the full message text. This data is stored in a flat text file, so you'll need to analyze it with an external tool. Jabber also can forward presence information to another server silently. For example, you can forward user logon/logoffs to an intranet Web server.
Jabber XCP is based on the open protocol XMPP. Although Jabber is the only vendor in our roundup that uses this protocol, many other vendors and IM clients use it, too. Many open-source Jabber clients will work with XCP.
Jabber eXtensible Communications Platform, Jabber, (303) 308-3231. www.jabber.com
Gordano Messaging Suite 8.02
This messaging suite works as an add-on to the Gordano Webmail suite. Unlike the Lotus add-on, the Gordano suite neither provides nor recommends using a stripped-down installation, nor does it offer enough features to make you consider adopting its Webmail system to get just the IM software. That said, if you're already invested in Gordano, the two are well-integrated and come at the low price of less than $1 per client.
This product's frustrating user interface needs a revamp. It allows no formatting in its messages, and managing buddy lists and the address book are tedious tasks. Furthermore, the suite provides no broadcast messages, no polling capabilities and no moderated chat rooms.
The Gordano Messaging Suite has a few redeeming values. In the Webmail component, you can see if the message sender is online and instantly reply directly from the e-mail message. No other vendor has this sort of e-mail integration. A user can have all instant messages e-mailed to himself or herself at the end of a conversation and can specify a recommended action to be taken when he or she is offline. At 91 cents per client for IM and mail, this product is a pretty good value, but may be a bit limiting for installations that involve thousands of users.
Gordano Messaging Suite, Gordano, (877) 292-1142. www.gordano.com
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Instant Messaging Service
Sure, Microsoft IM service is free and convenient if you use Exchange, but even then, it's far more limited than the other products we tested. There are no public chat rooms (though one IM can involve multiple people), no moderator capabilities and no editable user status messages. We like being able to say why we're away and when we expect to return. The screen-sharing capabilities are very good, but that's only if you're using Windows XP. Note that we did not examine "Greenwich," which is Microsoft's next-generation release, now in beta.
Clients connect using MSN Messenger (or Windows Messenger for XP users). You can also integrate with the public MSN network. Unfortunately, we constantly received messages that said, "To use this feature you must be logged into .Net Passport." We're also unhappy that this product doesn't support groups; all our contacts appeared in one long list and were stored on the end-user machine rather than on the server.
Only Windows XP users can take advantage of screen sharing and whiteboards. Those lucky XP users can lock and take control of the whiteboard so that no one else can draw at the same time. In addition, though multiple people can use IM like a chat room, no public chat rooms are built into Windows Messenger. Setting up public chat rooms requires a separate IRC client.
Exchange 2000 Instant Messaging Service, Microsoft Corp., (800) 936-3500 (product support), (800) 426-9400 (sales), (425) 882-8080. www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/features/instantmessage.asp
Ipswitch Instant Messenger 1.0
At less than $700, Ipswitch's IM may be inexpensive, but its chat, management and reporting features are second-rate. You can authenticate against an NT domain and see the list of users in the domain. You can use an Active Directory domain via backward compatibility, but can't see any AD groups, so all your users end up in a long list. To its credit, this product allows contact lists to have nested groups, which is one feature nobody else offers.
If you send a message to an offline user, the user receives it on the next login. You can also leave an offline status. A user can create custom away messages and assign a hot-key combination to put them up.
The product doesn't offer any screen- or whiteboardsharing capabilities and cannot create public chat rooms. There are no moderator abilities either. This product is so basic that it offers no compelling reason to spend even the low $695 it boasts, beyond getting your users off AIM as inexpensively as possible.
Ipswitch Instant Messenger, Ipswitch, (781) 676-5700. www.ipswitch.com
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