I've investigated this possibilty and found that OpenFire (Jabber server) is very easy to work with. You can control user account centrally, and create rooms an

I've investigated this possibilty and found that OpenFire (Jabber server) is very easy to work with. You can control user account centrally, and create rooms and assign who can access which rooms, from a web GUI. I've yet to see an IRC server that easy.