Hi, Email is one thing, file sharing in house is another.
You should consider whether later on....the company/building will be regaining Internet access, and want to use a program for BOTH in-house and Internet mail/messaging. That is doable, but those cost a bit more, naturally. Security over the Internet is important...and indeed it can be in-house unless this place is a small, tightly unified, and secure already. You may actually want only an offline, in-house mail messaging program, commonly known as a popup...something like Windows Messenger, just a chat client? That comes installed in winXP...and there are many programs like it available, some free. I don't know if file support is included, but in some sharewares it is, as you see.
Lots of these program log all messages- so users might be able to read all messages in/out on any machine.
Email is over the Internet, so if your connection to an ISP is dead, you cannot use Internet email. However there are lots of solutions.
If there are not too many individual computers, satellite service may still work- have you checked on that?
That WOULD be over the Internet...
If simple messaging back and forth is all you need, and all computers are able to "talk" to each other, you can just type text files and send them to the right computer.
How many individual machines are there going at any given time?
And, is there a mix of operating systems or by any chance are all running winXP or win2000?
Here is one ($99) that will support one server and 20 clients:
http://www.boomerangsoftware.com/Corporate/NewsCorp/SSTEnterprise/SSTEnInfo1.htm
Pegasus Mail, will work either LAN or Internet:
http://www.pmail.com/overviews.htm
Here is RealPopup...sends files, chat, lots of features and free!
http://www.realpopup.it/faq.html
Here's Snapmail much less cost and looks like more what you have in mind....they also have SnapTalk
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/10/4/2/10-4-2-41.shtml
Here is a whole bunch of LAN message clients:
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/10/4/2/
http://www.downlinx.com/lists/71/5.htm
Here is a pageful of both kinds: Internet and in house.
http://wantdbest.com/freebies/chattools.html
Will put some more in this post as I go along...
holler if that's enough
