Office Communicator

P

Pringle

2[H]4U
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Sep 30, 2012
Messages
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Hey guys

Just wanted some quick input, what are you using for an office communicator at work? I've been thinking about Microsoft Lync Basic 2013 (I previously used Microsoft Office Communicator).

We're just looking for something basic for 60-70 employees, with file-transfer capabilities. Free and small system-footprint is another.
 
my company uses Lync (Skype for Business).

There's about 1500 employees in the local offices and another 300 remote on the East coast.

It works well because it integrates with Outlook and has all the necessary features.
 
My company also uses Lync\Skype for Business. It works really well for collaboration and presence viewing.
 
If you're looking for something free, Spark/Openfire is an alternative chat application. I don't believe it is encrypted by default. This could prove to be a convoluted task, or trivial. I haven't actually looked at that portion.

Otherwise, everyone could just use a free Skype account if it's their personal account, then create rooms or however else you'd like.
 
We use Spark/Openfire for our office, much smaller with only 6 users but spread out remotely. We're an MSP, so we need to stay in contact but remote support is the name of the game. If you've used Discord and thought about it for work, look at Vector.im. It's a self-hosted Discord.
 
I often recommend GroupOffice by Intermesh. It's a collaboration suite.
Files, shared e-mail, calendar, tasks, notes, the works. There is a free version which is legal to use even in commercial situations.
The permissions system is fine grained, so you can have both a common "dropbox" and a "departmental" one for each user.
I have no stake here, I'm just saying - I have tried Zimbra, the mozilla projects, basically everything in order to find the right kind of collaborative e-mail. Only groupoffice and the paid MS stuff fit the needs. And GO is seriously free. I have had success in getting support on their forum even though I am not a paying customer.
If you have a spare Linux box or VM, and you're able to install Debian or Ubuntu, then the installation process is braindead easy - it really does only require one to add the repos, apparmor and just pull the package with apt. There is an additional package - groupoffice-mailserver.
And it's speedy. I have thousands of e-mails spread around dozens of mailboxes and the search feature works instantaneously.
I only have 1 physical CPU core assigned to it and 2 GIGS of Ram - it's mostly idling even with 25 people using the thing.
Drag and drop works fine, and it's been rock solid for me for the last 3+ years. Obviously upgrading to newer versions can be iffy, but there's usually no need - the product is quite mature.
I don't sell it, I just love the thing.
 
using spark-openfire here too. It's ability to integrate with AD is a huge. The client is nice and thin, simple and works.
 
We had Lync and went to Jabber. God, I fucking hate Jabber, what a piece of fucking shit and Cisco puts their name on that turd?

Lync Just always worked and did I mention, just worked? Jabber feels so incomplete and half baked.
 
Spark/Openfire here as well, thousands of employees across multiple countries.
 
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