There's a new, slick service by 37signals: Campfire. As expected, a very nice piece of web software.
But....I don't get it.
Home vs. homeless
They have a point that the invitation process of existing chat clients is cumbersome.
Network compatibility
Well, this translates into having a chat client running (for communicating with all those traditionals like me) plus having an open web-page for group chats. Not very appealing.
File sharing
Well, for most businesses, it doesn't matter. Because everyone uses the same chat client anyway.
History and transcripts
I'm using iChat, which logs each and every chat incident. Plus, there's a tool to search these logs.
Persistence
That's a nice feature.
Security
Well, yeah. But do you send each and every business e-mail encrypted? I don't think so.
Plus, my chat client is free. No cost. Zero. I don't think they have enough compelling arguments for businesses to switch.