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Connecting unofficially to the AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo Messenger networks (as well as IRC chat and XMPP messaging like Jabber), Trillian Pro also offers 'serverless messaging'. Within the security of the company network, instant messages to co-workers are sent directly to the relevant PC. You don’t need to set up encryption, or even give everyone an Internet connection. Anyone else using Trillian Pro automatically shows up on your contact list. Conversations can be logged from each client.

This product is best suited to smaller companies with few IT resources. Download a free trial of version 3.1 here.

IMsecure Pro is simple to install and immediately identifies and protects your IM clients, including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, and even 'universal' clients like Trillian. It works in the background, requires minimal configuration and offers a range of security functions, including message encryption, buffer overflow protection, 'spim' (IM spam) blocking and ID locking.

This product is best suited to smaller companies with few IT resources. You can download a trial version of IMsecure Pro here.

This is not the cheapest Web conferencing system because you’re paying to use WebEx’s private MediaTone Network, but it's one of the most powerful. WebEx Meeting Center includes application sharing, an interactive whiteboard, video from up to four cameras, VoIP telephony or free conference calls, Outlook scheduling integration and excellent meeting controls. The new Power Panels let you keep multiple windows on-screen at once to show chat, video, lists of participants and other tools that keep the meeting on track.

Macromedia’s Breeze takes advantage of the Flash player that’s on almost every desktop to deliver Web-based conferencing, presentations and training. A set of PowerPoint plug-ins convert existing presentations into Flash movies, including voice-overs; you can also add quizzes and tests. You can use the resulting Flash-based Breeze-presentations in meetings, presentations, seminars and e-learning, and record complete meetings to replay later. Meetings can include video conferencing, as well as online chat, and you can brand the meeting environment with details such as your company logo. You can either use the hosted Breeze service, or run meetings on your own servers.

Built on top of IBM’s well-known WebSphere Application Server and including technology from its Raven knowledge-management project, WebSphere Portal Express is a collaboration server designed for a small business, or a department within a larger business. Portal Express includes portal features and integrated document management tools, while Portal Express Plus adds virtual team rooms and instant messaging. Like all portals, you can include J2EE applications running in portlets that link to existing applications, or you can use any Java development tool to create your own tools. You can use WebSphere Portal Express to collaborate with business partners as well as internal teams. Although there is an integrated database to get you started, you can also use IBM’s DB2, Microsoft’s SQL Server and Oracle.

Lotus Notes was one of the first collaboration applications. The Domino server has now been decoupled from the Notes client, and you can use it as a Web-based collaboration tool. To get the best results from Domino you still need to use the Notes client to access applications and messages, although remote users can work with any client that supports POP3 or IMAP mail. Three versions are available for small business: Messaging Express, Collaboration Express and Utility Server Express. The Collaboration Express variant includes mail, calendaring and workflow applications as well as basic IM and Web conferencing. Utility Server Express allows you to extend collaboration applications to your partners via the Internet.

Not to be confused with Microsoft’s hosted Web conferencing system, LiveMeeting, Live Communications Server 2005 offers instant messaging and presence for the enterprise, complete with peer-to-peer audio, whiteboards and application sharing (one-to-one rather than for a group in this release). The new version includes federation (offering IM and presence services to home workers and partner companies) and PBX integration so you can make and forward phone calls (with selected PBXs from partners like Siemens, Mitel and Alcatel). Add in the latest service pack (and pay an annual fee) and you get official, supported access to the main public IM services including MSN, AOL and Yahoo! Messenger through the new Office Communicator 2005 client. Communicator 2005 lets you search for people and see when they’ll be free to talk if they’re in a meeting. It also supports telephony (including PSTN, VoIP and mobile phone services depending on your PBX), video and other conferencing options, so you can get in touch with almost anyone from the same software.

The server version of SharePoint has the same document libraries, discussion groups and meeting workspaces as Windows SharePoint Services, but the Audience features mean you can personalise content for users by creating rules based on their interests, security group, job, team or just about anything else. Each user gets a MySite automatically, with a public view that lets colleagues find the right people to talk to and a private view that presents information and applications tailored to your job. TeamSites work like MySites, but for collaborative groups. Saving documents from Office to Document Workspaces gives basic content management features, including versioning, simple routing, change notification through task panes and approvals.

Novell's SuSE Linux Openexchange Server is a Linux-based collaboration and messaging platform. Open standards, including WebDAV, mean that you can use Openexchange with a wide range of client applications -- including Microsoft Office. Connectors link the server platform to Microsoft Outlook and to Palm handhelds, so you can collaborate using familiar tools. In addition to calendaring and contact management, Openexchange offers discussion forums, a simple project management tool plus a bookmark and knowledge repository Integrated IM adds unusual features like shared text editors and mind-mapping tools to help distributed teams work together. Administration is via Web pages, so you don’t need to be familiar with Linux to look after the server.