Chapter 8 - Real-Time Communication in Exchange 2000

Abstract

This chapter reviews real-time communication that means live communication from one-to-one and many-to-many users. Microsoft has products that meet all the different expectations of real-time communication. This chapter reviews instant messaging, the feature in Exchange 2000 that shows when other people are online at their computer. It discusses the chat service, which allow users to communicate in text mode in a virtual conference room and Microsoft's feature-rich conferencing product, Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server. Each of these three products offers a level of real-time communication that is differentiated by the number of features it can utilize, the level of complexity to configure on the server and the client side, and the number of client applications that can use the technology. Exchange 2000 provides for a chat service on the server. The system administrator can create chat communities, administer the communities, ban users, and create channels and classes. Exchange Conferencing Server should be viewed as a software conferencing solution for small to medium organizations, or for groups within large organizations. It can keep travel budget down and enables one to have meetings more often because the total cost of implementation is low.