Network messaging software

[earlyriser]

Sorry to drag this up as I know it's been covered before, but most of the posts I can find are fairly old.

 

I'm looking for a messaging system to use on our teacher notebooks, for intra-staff communication. The main purpose is so the attendance officer can remind the teachers to submit their electronic rolls, but a general instant messaging system is also required.

 

We are currently using GoogleTalk, as we have Google Apps, but the GTalk client relies on users 'friending' other users, and as far as I am aware the client is not able to do SSO, so it relies on users actually signing into it in the first place (which they don't do).

 

So I'm looking for a simple chat/IM interface, that is AD integrated and supports SSO so that it automatically runs and signs in on user logon. I've looked at OpenFire/Spark and it looks good, but can't find clear documentation on getting SSO to work on Server 2008 or R2, and it looks fairly complicated. Our domain is Server 2008 R2 and client workstations are Windows 7.

 

Anyone have any suggestions or recommendations?

 

Cheers

[Cragzman]

We use a program called Fomine Net Send on our Server 2003/XP Pro network. Very easy to set up and use. But we haven't tested it in a server 2008 R2/Win7 network. This auto logs in as the current user and picks up any other Fomine clients automatically. Very handy tool to have.