HipChat Takes On Campfire And Yammer As It Launches To The Public

HipChat , a private business chat service that's similar to Yammer and 37signals' Campfire , has just launched to the public. You can find our full overview of the service's private beta here . HipChat looks quite a bit like Campfire, but uses a desktop client based on Adobe AIR, rather than a web-based client (Yammer, which we use extensively for internal communication around the TechCrunch offices, is based on AIR as well). Co-founder Pete Curley says that since launching its private beta, HipChat has had nearly 500 companies sign up who have exchanged over 100,000 messages. He also says that many of the companies to sign up have converted to paying customers.