Re: Instant chats and central servers

[deeann mikula <deeann () telerama com>]

On Tue, 8 May 2001, Kevin Gannon wrote:
> > It's a feature of how free services work.

i think sean was really interested in if/how people are using those
AIM/YM things.  we are pretty heavily dependent upon realtime chat
(for the reasons kevin outlines below) but would never even joke about
using AIM/YM for senstive information w/i our organization.  well, ok,
we do *joke* about it. ;)


> I know that one household name in IT uses an internal chat server
> to allow there 2nd line support get access to there 3rd line people.
> Basically it means they have instant access to all the heavy hitters
> in a non-intrusive way.

this is what we do, except that we have our entire staff, from our
office assistant to the owner of the company on one irc channel on a
private server.  it's indespensible!  as a matter of fact, people are
chastized for not paying attention to it, because it is the PRIMARY
means of communication w/i the company.  of course, we have less than
10 people active at any given time, so it's not too unruley.


> It works a dream as a customer I can get access via the 2nd line
> to 3rd line folk that want to answer questions. Rather than the

we have been running a beta of a java-type thing to irc (i don't know
the details) for customers to talk directly with support staff.  it IS
a dream, they love it.

i rejected using AIM/YM for customer relations, too.  we don't let
them send passwords via email, and certainly wouldn't let them send
them across aol's and yahoo's networks.

so for us, it's a matter of not allowing proprietary information off
of our own servers that makes us reject those programs.



deeann m.m. mikula
network administrator
telerama internet -- http://www.telerama.com
abuse () telerama com/spam () telerama com
1.877.688.3200x501