Jabber is rocking our office world right now. We downloaded the server, and got one up and running (in short order really) on a local Linux box.

The reason is this: we have taken to doing a lot of dev chat in house, and were using AIM. We decided that we did not want sensitive information going out (unencrypted even) over AIM's network.

Now, do you suppose AOL is giving away their server code so you or I can run an AIM server? <AHEM> No.

With Jabber, however, we get mostly all the features of AIM, in an open server we can run in-house. It's got IM, and group chatting, so we can use it for sub-teams to hang out and communicate. Yay!