How to make the most of a Corporate Instant Messenger
No matter the size of your company, you know one thing for sure: communication is essential. Not only is this true among your employees and clients, but it is the case with interoffice communication as well. While email and phone calls are good some of the time, it is important to have a high quality corporate instant messenger that you can rely on as well.
If you are trying to make the most of a corporate instant messenger you may find that some employees are not on-board. While there is a learning curve, it is nothing that you shouldn’t be able to overcome.
Here are four things you can to do to increase your chance of success with a corporate instant messenger:
1. Make the right choice so that you and everybody else wants to use the application, day in and day out. In other words, if you select the right corporate instant messenger your employees will love to use it because of all the features and benefits it offers. But make the wrong decision and you will find out soon enough that nobody is using the program and you are back to square one.
2. You need a corporate instant messenger that allows you to create networks. It is very important that you have some control over who is communicating with one another. With the ability to create and manage private networks, it is your choice as to who joins and is able to communicate.
3. Make it mandatory. You don’t want to come across as the bad guy, telling employees how to communicate with one another. But sometimes it takes a little push for them to realize that using a corporate instant messenger would be in their best interest. At the very least, require a trial period with a review at the end. This way, you know everybody is using the messenger and when all is said and done you will receive quality feedback.
4. Explain the benefits. The last thing you want to do is implement a corporate instant messenger, send an email announcing this, and leave it at that. No, you need to speak with your employees and make them aware of the many benefits. Let them know about how they can create networks. Let them know about chat logs that they can use to their advantage. Let them know about the many ways to manage their contact list.
When you follow these tips your company will be in position to make the most of a corporate instant messenger.
Corporate Instant Messenger: The Features you need
Many organizations believe that choosing a corporate instant messenger is something they can do on a whim. Of course, they find out soon enough that they are wrong. This is a big decision, and one that will have an effect on your company now and into the future. If you choose a corporate instant messenger based on the features that they offer and how they relate to your business, the end result will be one that you are happy with.
Corporate Instant Messenger Features
Below is a list of five features that your IM client must offer:
1. The ability to create and manage your own networks. If you rely on a basic program, such as AIM, you are going to be missing the boat. You must choose an instant messenger that allows you to create networks that are used exclusively within your organization.
2. User activity log. This is the perfect tool if you need to go back and check past conversations, no matter what the reason may be. Brosix, for example, saves file transfers, voice calls, and chat sessions to the server. At any time the information can be reviewed through the admin control panel.
3. Free technical support. Okay, this does not have anything to do with the actual features of a corporate instant messenger. But guess what? It is every bit as important. Do you think AOL is going to come to the rescue if you have a problem? Probably not. But when you rely on a corporate instant messenger like Brosix you can always directly contact the IT team for free and fast technical support.
4. An IM client that works on all computers, not just windows. Every organization runs a different operating system. It is important that all features are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This gives you the freedom needed to communicate regardless of your computer or system.
5. Different languages. Believe it or not, English is not the only language spoken in the world today! Along with this, it is important to note that many companies do not conduct business in English. Fortunately, Brosix has taken this into consideration and now offers different languages in its interface. At this time, English, Bulgarian and German are available – many more are in development. It does not matter what corporate instant messenger you choose, you must make sure that it supports your primary language.
Choosing a corporate instant messenger on the fly is one mistake that your organization will soon regret. It is important to take your time when making this important decision. How you communicate with coworkers and clients is nothing to take lightly.
Do Instant Messengers Need Remote Access?
After Brosix won the Best IM Feature for Brosix Screenshot in the About.com IM Awards, I got to thinking– what other features does Brosix and other instant messengers need that they don’t already have?
While I think that file transfer and screen sharing are great features, I definitely think that Brosix instant messenger and other IM programs could possibly benefit from remote access. Remote access is the ability for a user to access another computer through their instant messenger program.
For this to work, both computers would need to have the instant messenger program installed and it would have to start up immediately (or a co-worker could log in the remote computer for the user) in order for remote access to work.
Of course, there are some specifics to work out, but I definitely think that Remote Access would be another great feature that Brosix could offer to its customers.
Brosix Wins Best IM Feature of 2010 in About.com IM Awards
Brosix is pleased to announce that we are again winners in the About.com IM Awards. This time, Brosix won for ‘Best IM Feature‘. This feature was the Brosix Screenshot.
Brosix won with an astounding 61% of the votes (6108 votes!), competing against Digsby’s Facebook Integration, G-Recorder, ICQ’s Feeds, and Yahoo! Messenger’s Video Calls.
This was stiff competition and Brosix is proud to again be one of the best public and enterprise instant messengers on the market today.
Free Trial of Brosix Enterprise
Brosix 3 Beta 2
The long waited Beta 2 of Brosix 3 is here. This moves us one step closer to its official release.
The things you will find in Brosix 3 Beta 2 are:
- Brosix works on Windows, Mac and Linux. The important thing is that all features are available on all the platforms - text chat, file transfer, whiteboard, voice calls, video calls etc. All features work on Windows, Mac and Linux. This gives you the freedom to communicate from virtually all available PC platforms.
- Brosix supports themes in its user interface. It comes with 6 themes. You can also make your own themes to customize its look even more.
- Brosix speaks different languages in its user interface. We start with English, German and Bulgarian. More languages will come soon.
- Brosix supports groups in the contact list. Each user can organize its contacts in groups. The Instant Messaging network administrator can create and manage groups from the web control panel. This gives the organizations a powerful tool to organize users.
- Download page for your IM network. We extend the supported platforms and this means there are more Brosix distributions available for your IM network. We have created a download page to contain all the versions for your IM network - Brosix setup for Windows, Brosix portable for Windows, Brosix for Mac, Brosix for Linux. This is a one central storage for all Brosix versions designed and built for your organization.
You can go to your web control panel to get the address of your download page or go to http://download.brosix.com and after entering your Instant Messaging network name you will be redirected to your download page.
Users of Brosix FREE Public go to www.brosix.org and download Brosix.
Important Note: Some of the features in Brosix 3 are not compatible with the old Brosix 2. Please, make sure you have Brosix 3 at the both ends of the communication. You can mix Brosix 2 and Brosix 3 only with the standard text chat, file transfer and screen-shot.
We value your feed-back and would like to hear from you. Please download Brosix 3 Beta 2 and review it with your colleagues or friends. Very soon Brosix 3 will be the only Brosix version available and we would like to hear from you before we make it the official version. We would like to hear from opinions about the user interface to stability and ease to use. If you have suggestions, please let us know.
If you have any questions about Brosix, don’t hesitate to contact us: http://www.brosix.com/contact.aspx
Is Your IM Program Making You Vulnerable Online?
One of the highlights of Brosix Instant Messenger, both public and enterprise versions, is the fact that all communications run through either type of program is highly encrypted. This strong encryption ensures that any time of messaging or use of features in the Brosix Instant Messaging program will be highly confidential and kept only to the people using Brosix as authorized users.
For whatever reason you need to use instant messaging to communicate online, using a regular “free” instant messaging program like Yahoo! Instant Messenger or Jabber can pose a security threat to both your personal computer and your network. This is why it is important to pick an IM service like Brosix.
While both versions of Brosix offer a high level of security, it’s important to consider what type of use. The Enterprise version is for businesses and professionals who need to communicate with co-workers and employees. The Public (free) version is for users who still want a secure connection, but are mostly using instant messaging for conversing with friends and family.
While it may seem like you don’t need a secure connection to talk to people you already know, you can’t guarantee they themselves haven’t been attacked by a hacker or other malicious program. Taking the steps to protct yourself will help prevent a trusted colleague from passing something along to you, even if they don’t mean to.
The Olympics and Worldwide Communication
The internet has done many great things to unite the world and all it’s people and cultures together. Nothing is a greater reminder of this than the Olympics, which are being held right now in Vancouver, Canada. The Winter Olympics’ theme for 2010 is ‘With Glowing Hearts’, a saying that is meant to convey the nationalistic passion and dedication these athletes have when they are competing.
However, I think that the Winter Olympics and the saying ‘With Glowing Hearts’ could also translate into how we are communicating using the internet as a means to stay close to our friends, significant others, and family. A warm heart means staying in touch with those who matter to us and Brosix Instant Messenger makes that part easy. With video chat and text chat on a secure server, making sure that loved ones know you are thinking of them is easy.
Unlike other instant messengers like Skype, and AIM, you will never be subjected to advertisements and you are on a guaranteed, encrypted server that was built to protect you and your communication and files from malicious attacks, viruses, phishing, and con artists.
Click here to download a free version of Brosix.
Brosix Agenda 2010
Hello Everyone,
The 2010 year is here. The past 2009 was very successful for Brosix as the number of users tripled in one year. Now we are looking forward for the new 2010 and I wanted to share with you some of or plans.
With this message I want to let you know what is comming with Brosix in the next weeks and months.
First of all as you know we are working on a new version called Brosix 3.
Last year we released Beta 1 of Brosix 3 - the new version of our Instant Messenger and collaboration tool. There are several new things with this version, that are described in more details here.
The most important are the new platforms supported (Mac and Linux) and the new user interface. The new user interface is nicer and supports themes and languages. We are looking for volunteers to help us translate Brosix to many languages. We are willing to pay for the translations, so if you would like to earn some money, contact us. There are some improvements in the features and we also added a support for groups in the contact lists. You can control groups on two levels - every user can group his contacts or the IM network administrator can set user groups. This will allow you to group your users in departments, office locations etc.
In the next weeks we will release Beta 2 and then will completely remove Brosix 2 and substitute it with Brosix 3. This will allow us to give you Brosix on more platforms. We will start with Windows, Linux and Mac. Then we will continue with mobile devices. This will allow you to be more connected with your colleagues and friends.
While expanding on more platforms we will also work on adding new features and improving the already existing ones.
When Beta 2 is announced, please download and review it. We value your feed-back and would like to hear from you.
If you have any questions about Brosix, don’t hesitate to contact us: http://www.brosix.com/contact.aspx
Kind regards,
Stefan Chekanov
Brosix
www.brosix.com
Best IM Client 2010 vote is open
The Reader’s Choice Awards 2010: Best IM contest is now open over at About.com. We would love for you to vote for Brosix! We have been nominated in the following category:
- Best IM Feature 2010: Brosix Screenshot
Voting is now underway and we would appreciate your support.
CONGRATULATIONS are in order for the Brosix development team which has built a leading enterprise instant messaging software and are now being recognized for it.
We also owe a debt of gratitude to the loyal users of Brosix who nominated us in the first place!
Follow this link to vote: Vote for Brosix.
Instantly Communicate With Instant Messaging
One thing about this new century that we are now in that is it seems like life is getting more and more hectic. In a world of ‘instants’– instant answers from the internet, instant gratification from fast food, and instant entertainment with DVR and DVDs, we all feel pressured to be our best and most efficient person we can be. However, with a life full of ‘instants’ also comes a life full of procrastination. You wait until the last moment to eat, communicate, and even relax because you know that you have the tools and resources at your disposal to get it done FAST, instantly.
So, for times that you are procrastinating and waiting until you are in a rush to finish a few work tasks or to confirm directions or deadlines, instant messaging is ideal. There are a lot of ‘instant’ helpers out there, but instant messaging can be helpful for anyone. It also is very affordable (or even free) and Brosix is an instant messaging program that starts up fast, giving you that instant use you need.
When I need to instantly communicate with someone, I use Brosix instant messaging. For example, last week I logged onto my IM, told a co-worker I was going to be late to work, and then I was able to finish getting ready and out the door. This took much less time than a phone call would, and I could log off after I was finished sending the message. IM saved me time and didn’t take that much effort. Just the type of ‘instant’ I like!