Inter office communication

Probably a pricey option, but one that works for my company is Lotus Sametime. It has its own IM client, and Whiteboard sharing, Desktop sharing, and a bunch of other features.
We run 1 Lotus Sametime server, and people within the global WAN connect to the web site Sametime runs (available on the WAN only, not on the Internet), download the Sametime client, and connect.

I believe that Exchange 2000 now has a IM functionality also, but we aren't on Exchange so I don't know for sure.

Just some ideas.

We've been using ipSwitch instant messenger for some time now and it works quite well. It is hosted on a Windows server, with a client front end. One-on-one conversations, group chat, file transfer, all there. It even has a few smiley graphic things. Users here really like it. $695 for unlimited users.

http://www.ipswitch.com/products/instant_messaging/index.html

We also evaluated dBabble. As the resident geek, I actually liked it a little better, but it was not nearly as easy to use as the ipSwitch product, and my test users didn't like it as much; YMMV. Also, at the time we evaluated, it was still a little rough around the edges. That was about 6 months ago, no doubt the product has improved. It is list priced at $485 for unlimited users.

http://netwinsite.com/dbabble/

Have you tried the chat feature in NetMeeting?

6 users? Go with netmeeting...

You could also try one of theese solutions:

http://old.gallantry.com/solutions/gw_email.html

http://www.atlantic-coast.com/va/features.htm#inta

http://www.linkfinding.com/cgi-bin/search/smartsearch.cgi?keywords=intranet+messaging

Anyway, if you don't want to go to the internet for this service, you'll most probably have to use one PC as a mail server for which ever solution you end up using.

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