LAN Messenger or Internet Messenger which is Better for Your Business

Enterprise-level messenger has been chosen by more and more companies for daily business communication. Mainly there are two kinds of enterprise messenger, one is used in single local area network (LAN) only, and the other will work for both of LAN and internet network.

The LAN messenger runs inside a company, only valid users who are inside the firewall can access the messenger system, no need Internet connection or a central server. This is the most important advantages of using a LAN message, your communication system cannot be spammed from the outside, eliminate unnecessary and personal instant messaging to friends, relatives, But on other side, it’s one of the disadvantages, just image if you have multiple offices around the world when you need to users from New York, Paris and Dubai to join the same communication system.

Many LAN messenger offer basic functionality like sending and receiving message, transferring file and smiley. In a sense, LAN messenger is an ideal replacement of the time-out Windows net-send command.

Different to LAN messenger, the other kind of instant messenger allows both of LAN and internet connection. Users who need to access the communication system from internet can be controlled by the system administrator from gateway or router. User’s accounts and password will be created and managed by the system administrator to eliminate the access of invalid users from internet.

An instant messenger can be accessed from both of LAN and internet network offers more functionality, because most of them have an instant messaging server for centrally control what happening on the messenger system and customize the internet messenger to fit the company requirements.

Firstly, you can keep a full record of the history message in the instant messenger server in case you need to print it out. Send message or transfer file to an offline user becomes easy, just do things in the same way when you need send a message to an online user. The enterprise-level internet messenger guarantees the delivery of all messages.

Secondly, the contact list of users from different locations can be managed in a tree view, so users will have a clear view of others location, department or job title etc. If you do not want the users from Paris to talk to users from New York, you can configure a role to restrict the access which is an existed and popular feature offered by most of enterprise-level instant messenger like BigAnt Office Messenger.

Thirdly, chat will not only be in text, you can use voice chat for a quick question or make further confirmation, or even launch a video chat when you need do a quick face-to-face conference rather than walk all over the office. Remote desktop and white board is available which offer efficient ways to solve the trivial technical issue.

In sum, if you have a small local business, the LAN messenger is suitable, if you have medium business or have different offices through the world, an enterprise messenger allows works on both of LAN and/or internet network