Instant messenger that gives me messages even when sender is offline?

Question

I'm using Skype but it's becoming a PITA, since we're using it for work and we often miss appointments and such - because in Skype, a message only gets through when both the sender and receiver become online.

It gets even worse when one of us uses several different PCs - then the effect is that messages can even come out of order, at different moments, and be very confusing.

This is in contrast to, say, email, where I send a message to a mailserver, and I can go offline, and when the receiver checks his mail, he gets the message anyway (because it's stored on his mailserver).

Is there an instant messenger that supports that sort of email-style reliability? Preferably, not a web app.

Bonus points if it's mega-polished and awesomely-designed like Skype is. Group chat would be great. VoIP and video are not required.

Btw, just because I'm using it for work, doesn't mean I want some sort of enterprise groupware communication system or anything. I just want lightweight IM-ing.

Answer 1

Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Instant Messenger both deliver messages while the recipient is offline. I personally use pidgin portable (from www.portableapps.com or you can get the non-portable version from www.pidgin.im)

Or Google Talk (http://www.google.com/talk/) is a desktop application that delivers messages via google mail accounts if the recipient goes offline / gets disconnected.

You can even install the browser pulgin and do video conferencing through the browser.

But, the desktop app of google talk is pretty good, as it gives you new mail notification for your gmail account (or google apps-based domains) as well.