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Some more “enlightened” companies, and some companies in which the sysadmins show initiative 
, have been looking into internal Jabber servers. Jabber is an open source instant messaging (but expandable to do more than simply IM) system – more precisely, it’s a protocol for those messaging systems.
It’s relatively easy to install and configure a Jabber server. It has several advantages over using some external IM system like MSN Messenger or ICQ: encryption, central control, and security (because users can’t, for instance, receive a virus or trojan from outside). Managers also tend to be easier to convince, even those who try to ban IM in the company, because it all stays inside the company, so they believe (and sometimes it even happens) than people will use it for work.
I’ve tried out a couple of servers, and I’m quite satisfied with this one: Jive Messenger. Ridiculously easy to install (uncompress the files to /opt; cd /opt/messenger/bin; ./messenger/start; then browse to the server’s address, on port 9090), with a web administration interface, can use the company’s directory server (using LDAP) for authentication (instead of having to create accounts, or allow users to create accounts and be vulnerable to all the likely abuse), supports features like a group chat and saving user info on the server, and it’s expandable through plugins. It doesn’t even require an external database. And, naturally, it’s open source. It uses Java, but installing the JRE isn’t a lot of work.
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