Sending a "message" to another system or another user

First, I have as workbook I am using in a way that is NOT recommeded. Sharing... I am resolving that by migrating to ACCESS, so please DONT BUST ON ME)
I would think that my request would also be applicable for my long term fix in access as well.

I have a network of users that are working on different projects. What I would like to do is when an event happens, to send a message (prefer IM) to a user to get their attention and let them know something has happened and needs more attention. I would also "like" to incorperate this as part of my error handling process, but if I can get a generic version of something, then I can make the mods for that.

I can do this via email, but I do not want to clutter up the email inbox, as there could be many sends during the day.

We use Office Communicator 2005,  and I am looking to see if there is a way that I could use this. I have tried the code below, only to find out that Office Communicator 2005 does not have SENDTEXT. Is there another way to handle this in Office Communicator 2005?

Here is the code:
Sub sendIM()

Dim msgr As CommunicatorAPI.IMessengerConversationWndAdvanced
Dim ToUser As String

Dim message As String

Application.ScreenUpdating = False

 ToUser = "me@mycompany.com"
  ToUser1 = "MyName@division.MyCompany.com"  'Using this email format fails. This IS how my email is, it DOES have a subdomain!

message = "test vba communicator"

On Error GoTo 0

Set msgr = Messenger.InstantMessage(ToUser1) 'Using this email format fails. This IS how my email is, it DOES have a subdomain! This is WHERE it fails with a "RUN TIME ERROR '-2147467259 (80004005) method 'InstantMessage' of object 'IMessenger3' failed"


'
'Send message to window
'
msgr.SendText (message)  ' Only for comm 2007 and later.... So I also get an error here.
msgr.Close

Application.ScreenUpdating = True

End Sub

Now, yo may say why just upgrade to Communicator 2007, and I would say I would love to, but, being in a large company, all systems are locked down, and I have tried to go that route, but IT says NO.

NET SEND is disabled. And I don't have rights to Enable it. Tried that also...

So, I can really only work with EXCEL/ACCESS for my solution.

Another possible way I have thought of is send from one instance of EXCEL on one machine to another instance on a different machine. This COULD be done by passing a message via a shared workbook, but I am trying to get away from that and I also don't have the overhead to keep watching that worksheet., so I am looking for something else.

Thanks

Bruj