Jive wants to give its customers new ways of interacting by developing apps that will allow company employees to communicate in a less formal way through their mobile devices. In January, the business software company announced its first pair of apps: Jive Chime and Jive People.

Jive Chime, the company's social messaging app, is now available. It allows users to exchange messages, create 1-on-1 or group chat rooms and collaborate with other users while searching and sharing files. It aims to keep real-time connection within teams using their Android and iOS devices as well as their Windows and Mac PCs.

"With the fast pace of business today, co-workers need simple, singularly focused, mobile apps to work together in any context, at anytime and on any device," said Elisa Steele, president and CEO of Jive Software.

"Despite the many options for team communications, Jive Chime is the first to truly put people at the center of its design — a simple, smart, beautiful app to get the answers you need to keep the work moving and the conversation flowing."

Jive People works like a network directory that allows users to stay in contact with others within the organization. The app is due to launch in the third quarter of 2015.

"Many of the customers we speak to still use email or WhatsApp to communicate with their teams," said Jive's product officer, Clara Liang. "There are so many companies out there that aren't even collaborating with any of the communication apps — they're stuck in the old days."

Some of Jive's competitors are having similar thoughts about innovation to keep up with the times.

Other business messaging apps trying to gain a hold in a thriving messaging market include Slack, Atlassian HipChat, and startups TigerText and Cotap. Last month, Quip, a document collaboration app, added chat rooms to its features. File storage companies such as Evernote and Dropbox are also evolving by incorporating a messaging feature into their products and services. 

Liang is however confident that Jive can offer something unique. 

By using Jive Chime, employees can easily create and name groups, customize their notification preferences, add and remove colleagues from conversations, and know when the sent message is read and responded to by the members of the team. IT admins can add, edit and deactivate employees' profiles, which are all uploaded in a centralized console.

The Jive Chime app is free to use while its optional IT admin features will charge $2 for every user each month.