chat server recommendations ?

What kind of client access are you thinking? Web? Google talk? IRC?

Web = tons of solutions quite a few java and php based.

Google talk = jabber

IRC = well IRC

Of course you can access jabber and irc servers from the web as well.

If you want to be able to use a client on your end and a web page on your customer's end then jabber is probably the best way to go especially since you can use TLS connections.

yeah - jabber, that's the word i forgot. thanks

A customer wants to have multiple operators assisting his users - so it needs to be robust and simple for all. was considering Ace Operator by Quik http://www.quik-j.com/ but i dunno,…

So, does he want individual operators to talk to individual users, and user/operator pairs can't see other user/operator pairs?

Or does he want multiple operators interacting with multiple customers, like in the Linode IRC channel?

If it's the latter, you can look into Mibbit (hosted at Linode), a web-based IRC client (http://mibbit.com)

I have used Crafty Syntax Live Help before.

sounds like it might be close to what you want. might be worth looking into

http://www.craftysyntax.com/

Thanks for all the suggestions.. will be trying Ace Operator first http://www.quik-j.com/ace_operator.htm

and will check into crafty syntax and mibbit too.

The customer wants all that Guspaz listed. The Ace manuals say do all it can do all, and a lot more – much more.

We'll see,…

The customer ended up going with Crafty Chat - and they do seem to be satisfied after using this for a few months.