Jive Software: Instant Messaging Beyond AOL, Yahoo or Microsoft

For many of us we started using instant messaging (IM) through one of the free chat tools from AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft Messenger or Google Talk. These IM tools are good and are used by millions of consumers and businesses alike.

However, there comes a time in the life of your business when you know you need more. You need something more secure. You need software that can manage user names. You want your staff chatting under your identity and not that of AOL or some other service provider.

When the times comes you have to use your own IM server (or a hosted version) and Jive Software has a solution for you.

Jive Software has a free and fee based IM server and client software. Matt Tucker, CTO for Jive Software said that we can expect to see a hosted version as well. This will be good for those companies who want their own IM infrastructure but don't want to manage it on their own servers.

Situated in Portland, Oregon Jive Software's main product had been collaboration software, Jive Forums, knowledge base software, entitled Knowledge Base and software which blends the two together.

Earlier this year Jive Software launched open source software (free) an instant messaging server, Wildfire and a free IM client, Spark.

Jive Software also has a fee based only software, Fastpath, to enable your Wildfire and Spark software to serve the needs of your web site customers. Fastpath 3.0 (formerly Live Assistant) includes automated response tools and intelligent routing/queuing. Your customers, agents, experts and partners can all be together in the same integrated network.

Matt's hope is that businesses will be able to taste more secure instant messaging through the open source version of Wildfire and then upgrade to the commercial Wildfire Enterprise server which has features such as: Comprehensive archiving, Full client control, Real-time, graphical reports, includes Spark IM client and Spark Fastpath customer chat and server managed group chat bookmarks.

If you have Windows Server which uses active directory or an LDAP based server Wildfire can seemless integrate your users and permissions.

Wildfire does not limit you to only communicating with Spark clients. You can also chat with other clients (AOL, Yahoo, etc) via a gateway.

Wildfire Enterprise Reporting screen shot: