Lotus IM's chat rooms are feature-packed. Creators can password-protect their chat rooms, as well as set up meetings for specified times and durations. Of the products we tested, only Lotus Instant Messaging offers conference-scheduling capabilities. We set up a meeting to last an hour, with continuous 15-minute extensions. As long as someone was in the room, the meeting would remain active. Try doing that in a hotel. Furthermore, all participants can access a whiteboard or the screen-sharing function. Public meetings are viewable by all users in the meeting center, but you may also create hidden and password-protected rooms. A calendar shows all the public conferences during the day and week. Inside the chat room a moderator can grant permission to a user for taking control of a shared screen, editing the whiteboard, speaking in the room or becoming the new moderator or group. Users can also click a button marked "raise hand" when they wish to "speak" without interrupting the conversation.

Lotus IM's polling feature is more robust than any of the others we tested. You can do short answer, true/false, yes/no or multiple-choice polls with unlimited options. We put five new logo designs on the whiteboard and asked people to pick their three favorites. Poll results are sent back to the originator, who can view the number of responses as a raw number, by percent of the whole and via a bar graph. The originator can let all participants see the results or keep the poll anonymous. The only rub is that the people being polled must be in the same chat room. You also can do a "Web poll," which opens a Web page on each user's machine.

Interface click to enlarge

Of all Lotus Instant Messaging's features, only its reporting capabilities leave something to be desired. You can see who logged in, the number of active meetings, and who is using tools such as the whiteboard and videoconferencing. Recorded meetings are replayed in real time, and you can fast forward or rewind through them. However, message text is not centrally logged by default. You need to use the software developer's kit and write your own, or use a third-party add-on product, such as IMlogic's IM Manager.

IBM Lotus Instant Messaging, IBM, (800) IBM-4YOU, (617) 577-8500. www.lotus.com