IRC kind of sucks. The experience is worse. That's why people keep making these different tools - Campfire, HipChat, Slack.
It's not just a technical thing. It's an experience thing. IRC is technically fine, just way too nerdy to be main line of business software these days.
Twitch.tv is using IRC in their main line of business (their chat).
It seems to work fine for them and it is easy to write custom bots etc for it as it is based on an open protocol.
It's not just a technical thing. It's an experience thing. IRC is technically fine, just way too nerdy to be main line of business software these days.