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Will Instant Messaging Ever Unite?

Posted by Hemos on from the probably-not dept.

scallion writes "An article in Technology Review titled Getting AOL To Talk To MSN points out that currently the world of instant messaging is "as factionalized as Afghanistan," then asks, what will it take to unite all these individual IM networks under one umbrella?"

7 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. and the answer is... by jaclu · · Score: 5, Informative

    what will it take to unite all these individual IM networks under one umbrella?

    jabber.org

  2. it's called TRILLIAN! by T.Monk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Trillian rocks... combines 3 or 4 different IM into a single, skinnable interface, and even manages to keep up with AOL's shennanigans...

  3. Re:It'll never happen with the big guys by Mwongozi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, for a long time, ICQ was the only instant messaging platform. AOL bought Mirabilis, the creators of ICQ, shortly after the development of AIM.

  4. Answer: the end of the world. by b.foster · · Score: 5, Informative
    Companies are designed from the ground up to act in their own best interest. With that in mind, let's take a look at why the major players in the IM market might not be too keen on a common, universal IM standard.
    • AOL
      • AOL is the undisputed leader in the IM market. They were the pioneers; instant messages have been a part of AOL since the service was called AppleLink back in the late 1980s.
      • AOL does not need any more users on its IM network. It does not want more users on the network. Everybody who is anybody has an AIM account.
      • Facilitating compatibility with other IM networks would cost AOL money unnecessarily. They would not be able to install their spyware and ads on your system. And they would not be able to use the competing services to try to get you to join AOL. The economics of the situation favor the current approach.
    • MSN
      • Microsoft would also lose out from giving up the right to blast ads and spyware at all of the users of its network.
      • Microsoft fully intends to leverage a monopoly in the instant messaging arena to further its desktop and server monopoly. At that point they will begin charging for service. This would be less effective if they opened their network.
      • Keeping their network closed encourages more users to get Passport accounts, which Microsoft uses to harvest personal information and sell consumer dossiers and mailing lists.
    • Jabber
      • Jabber.org would benefit from an open IM standard. Unfortunately, Jabber.com would lose its only competitive advantage and would quickly go out of business.
      • Decentralization would make administration simpler, but would be unnecessarily incompatible with the centralized models of AOL, MSN, and (to a large extent) ICQ.
    b.
  5. Jabber? Try SIMPLE. by chefmonkey · · Score: 5, Informative
    Jabber, unfortunately, has a number of weaknesses. It was not designed for security (for example, it sends passwords as clear text), and the model it uses is inherently vulnerable to DOS attacks. And you'll never convince AOL to use it.

    On the other hand, SIMPLE is every bit as interoperable as Jabber, with the added weight of the fact that AOL has agreed to interoperate with other vendors using SIMPLE once it is complete.

    1. Re:Jabber? Try SIMPLE. by infiniti99 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It was not designed for security (for example, it sends passwords as clear text)

      What?!?! Jabber sends the password as a hash and even has SSL support. Some clients do PGP end-to-end if you really that. Not to mention that the server-to-server protocol does "dialback" to prevent spoofing. Sorry, but you are terribly misinformed here. Jabber is the most secure of all IM systems (which unfortunately doesn't say much, since security is basically non-existent in ICQ, AIM, etc).

      the model it uses is inherently vulnerable to DOS attacks

      I'm not a server developer, so I'd like to hear about these DoS attack vulnerabilities (that aren't inherent to servers in general). Otherwise, I'll write this comment off as unfounded.

      you'll never convince AOL to use it.

      I'll give you this, at least. Fortunately, as an open project, Jabber will live on no matter what any company says or does. Unfortunately, without serious corporate backing, Jabber is likely to stay within the techie circle (like Linux).

      According to Peter Saint-Andre (member of the Jabber Software Foundation, who was at this year's IETF meeting), SIMPLE is about two years away from defining the protocols, let alone implementations, for a full-featured IM system. Jabber only recently had an RFC written (earlier this year), as the focus before that has been on implementations. The difference is obvious: people are using Jabber right now, while SIMPLE is basically all talk.

  6. Re:AOL's proposal by chefmonkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    AOL has abandoned support for the initiative you site (about two years ago, in fact). They are now throwing their support (along with Microsoft) behind an IETF emerging standard called SIPMLE. See this article for confirmation of AOL's support of SIMPLE.