The next-generation IM
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IM for business:
Introduction Next-generation IM Putting IM to work IM still not secure 1. SCIM Enterprise Server 2. Lotus Sametime 3. Microsoft Exchange Comparison Sample scenario About RMIT Labs |
Microsoft believes that the most reliable way to present IM as an enterprise-class collaboration platform is to base it on new security features planned for Windows .NET Server and Titanium, the next release of Exchange.
Microsoft has a new initiative, Greenwich, which is designed to include both presence and IM capabilities in the base operating system. Microsoft announced at its recent Exchange conference that it would be decoupling IM from its conferencing server product and moving it into the base operating system next year. Once delivered, Greenwich will allow developers to build applications that use presence information to deliver IM, voice, video, and data sharing collaboration applications in the enterprise.
AOL and Yahoo! also plan to release corporate versions of their popular Instant Messaging products that include encryption and IT administration capabilities.
But IBM clearly isn’t sitting on the sidelines while Microsoft and AOL move to make IM capabilities ubiquitous. IBM is working to integrate its existing Sametime and QuickPlace collaboration tools with its WebSphere architecture. Although AOL has more AIM/ICQ users today than other IM vendors, they’re mostly consumer users. Corporate users are much more likely to adopt a real-time communications platform that has a development platform directly tied to it—either Microsoft’s .NET platform or IBM’s J2EE-based WebSphere platform.
The emergence of IM standards
Although AOL has resisted the creation, use, and support of IM standards, neither IBM nor Microsoft can afford to develop IM platforms in a vacuum. Both intend to use emerging Web services standards so developers can create enterprise applications that take advantage of the real-time communications and presence awareness technology.
Of course, AOL has been mandated by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to open its AIM system to communicate with rival systems as a condition of approving its merger with Time Warner. AOL has continued to complain about the difficulties of making IM transparent but has nevertheless knuckled down and made some progress, initially working with IBM to test interconnectivity with Lotus SameTime.
The industry is moving toward a common standard called Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). A related protocol, SIMPLE, (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions) is getting wide vendor support. IBM’s Sametime already uses SIP, and Microsoft has pledged future support for SIMPLE in its Greenwich products.
As the industry coalesces around accepted standards, developers will be able to write applications and code business processes that use presence and real-time communications sessions. The end result is that real-time collaborative activities will be integrated into standard business processes just as postal mail, the telephone, the fax, and e-mail have been.
While the industry sorts out interoperability issues, many users have taken matters into their own hands, and use multiple IM clients simultaneously. There are also a variety of applications which will let you interact simultaneously with AIM, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger users, as well as many others:
Jabber is a good solution. Not only is it an open standard, however, you can find many open source and even commercial solutions.
See: http://www.jabber.org.au/