What is Instant Messaging?
Overview
Instant Messaging (IM) is a system by which users can send short, textual messages to each other. Because both users are actively logged in to the IM server, the message is sent and received instantaneously; this differs from e-mail in that most e-mail clients check for mail at a particular interval when signed in to the e-mail server. IM is often a better means of communication when it is necessary to get a quick answer to a question or to establish a real-time dialog.IM @ UCR
UCR hosts a state-of-the-art enterprise-level IM server which can be accessed with any industry standard IM client that supports XMPP C&C officially recommends and supports the Spark IM client, but others such as Pidgin or iChat will work as well.