Make business collaboration easier with five chat client apps

by Jack Wallen | September 17, 2012, 11:40am PDT | Image 6 of 10

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Pidgen 2

Pidgin also integrates into the Windows system tray as well as the GNOME 2, KDE 3, and KDE 4 notification areas.

Images by Jack Wallen for TechRepublic.

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About Jack Wallen

A writer for over 12 years, Jack's primary focus is on the Linux operating system and its effects on the open source and non-open source communities.

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4 Votes

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No Lync or Spark?

CommodoreKid Updated - 18th Sep

We use Lync for our management staff and Spark for our agents. These two are probably the most business collaboration friendly I've seen.

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Business? Really?

VW-Driver-2012 18th Sep

How could any of these be "business" level? Unless your business has a few people and has zero compliance requirements. None of these chat programs compares to the level of capability that a solution like Microsoft's Lync or other true business class UC tools bring to the table. The clients listed above are consumer grade at best.

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no to skype, take a look at pidgin or empathy for multi-protocol

tmsbrdrs 18th Sep

Pidgin allows for a very large number of protocols as well, it's open source (big in many businesses these days), it's plugin-based and it's multi-platform. If you have any clients using Linux, steer them towards the client built in to their distro of choice. Any using a Gnome based distro should at least try out Empathy as it has many advantages. For example, Empathy can be used without opening a full chat window when using Gnome-Shell.
For both of these, Gtalk is built in.

Skype is simply too insecure. It's fine for use at home but should not be brought in to an enterprise environment where security is at all important.

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While I agree about the format

CharlieSpencer_Palmetto 18th Sep

The first sentence on the first screen says "NOTE: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog." and included an embedded link.

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How does one define Business or Chat

elleryjuly@... 18th Sep

I do not know what you consider business or a good chat clients. I consult to a lot of small businesses (100 seats or less) and with the except of gtalk and trillian I would tell them to stay far away. The ones I would recommend are Skype, Lync, or AOL. The number of people on AOL is still huge, Lync provides a level of security that most others do not plus the ability to go from chat to video instantly. Skype is just about everywhere and simple to use. Gtalk is nice especially for those in a google environment. Trillian is not very secure but it allows connections to just about every service.

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Make business collaboration easier with five chat client apps

Pidgen 2

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No Lync or Spark?

Business? Really?

no to skype, take a look at pidgin or empathy for multi-protocol

While I agree about the format

How does one define Business or Chat

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Make business collaboration easier with five chat client apps

Pidgen 2

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Related Galleries

About Jack Wallen

Jack Wallen

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No Lync or Spark?

Business? Really?

no to skype, take a look at pidgin or empathy for multi-protocol

While I agree about the format

How does one define Business or Chat

Join the conversation

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