XMPP Supporters Rally Behind Interop Gateways
October 17, 2003
By Michael Singer
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Hoping to calm the tumultuous interoperability waters in a vast sea of instant messaging, one industry group says it has the fix for at least part of the problem.
The Jabber Software Foundation (JSF)
Wednesday publicly released gateways to two other leading protocols for
instant messaging and wireless messaging, respectively.
Those are SIMPLE, or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions; and the Open Mobile Alliance's (OMA) Wireless Village protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Services (IMPS).
The Denver-based non-profit JSF builds IM applications on top of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) -- an open protocol that, like SIMPLE, is working its way through the Internet Engineering Task Force on its way to becoming an approved standard. Naturally, the JSF has been pushing hard to get
the protocol ratified soon by the IETF. Meanwhile, the JSF also reports
that more than 215,000 open-source XMPP servers have been installed with a
total worldwide user base of approximately 7 million to 10 million people.
Engineers at New York-based Antepo, a JSF sponsor, built the XMPP-to-SIMPLE gateway.
The XMPP-to-IMPS gateway was built by Jabber, Inc., the leading commercial vendor of XMPP-based IM solutions.
The efforts provide a foundation for links between three of the largest protocols now in use by the IM space, outside of the consumer networks.
"The Jabber community has always deeply valued interoperability, and it
is fantastic to see commercial companies such as Antepo and Jabber continue
the strong tradition begun by open-source developers," said Peter Saint-Andre, the JSF's executive director. "The fact that Jabber/XMPP is both
extensible and modular makes it the natural platform on which to build
interoperable systems."
The announcement came during this week's Instant Messaging
Planet Fall 2003 Conference & Expo here. The show is produced by Jupitermedia,
parent company of this Web site.
The introduction of new standards certainly adds fuel to the IM in the
enterprise debate. The major consumer IM environments, Microsoft , AOL and Yahoo!, all have
proprietary platforms, and, of course, do not interoperate.
XMPP -- also known as the Jabber protocol -- is often seen in implementations that are compatible with all three, thanks to gateways written by the open-source community.
While both Microsoft and AOL are actively participating in standards bodies
like the IETF and OMA, neither have agreed to adhere to any of the protocols in their public networks. (Microsoft supports SIMPLE with its Office Live Communication Server, slated for release next week.) Meanwhile, Yahoo! Enterprise Solutions senior vice president
Steve Boom, speaking at the Conference, said the protocols were important, but the company's policy is to
take a "wait and see" approach.
"We usually don't place our bets on a standard before it is one," he
said. "One problem with SIMPLE, for example, is that it doesn't support
multi-party chat."
The continuing contention over IM interoperability comes as the technology has become so widespread in the workplace that it's even attracted the
attention of federal communications authorities and Wall Street regulators.
The IM industry is already tackling the problem of documentation to align
with SEC and NASD regulations for financial reporting, but some financial
institutions are calling for better requirements for encryption.
In the coming months, the JSF expects sponsor and member organizations
continue to demonstrate the interoperability of XMPP with other protocols as
the XMPP standard inches closer to ratification by the IETF.
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