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Sun Launches Instant Messaging Server
theIG writes "According to this article at geek.com, and another one at InternetWeek, Sun has shipped the first part of its new enterprise collaboration platform to compete with Exchange and Domino. Dubbed 'Sun ONE Instant Messaging 6.0,' this server will work with other products to be released in May, to allow a single login for all of its services that allow connections from outside a corporate firewall." Instant messaging is becoming increasingly popular in the workplace. Local messaging servers like this were only the next logical step for businesses which don't wish to rely on an outside network for their messaging.
But Jabber doesn't come with glossy sales brochures and pointed marketing bullshit. Jabber won't 'increase the productivity of your workforce by upto 100000000%', or 'integrate flawlessly with our task management and collaboration framework', or.... you get the idea.
That hardly matters for corporate users, at whom this product is aimed. The idea is that employees use it mainly for interoffice messaging, not yapping all day to their pals.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This is a server that you run in an office, not a competitor to ICQ and Yahoo.
The data never leaves your private network, unlike Messenger, which routes everything through Redmond or wherever.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
So this costs $30 per user and no mention of the client software requirements. Will they just be Solaris or Linux/Windows/Solaris? As other people have said why not just role out jabber?
With Sun: For a 100 person organsiation cost = $3000 + implementation time
With Jabber: implementation time
BIt of a no brainer?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
The appeal to me is that Jabber is an open standard with well thought out open protocols. Anyone can write their own Jabber client in any language. Same for interfaces.
There are libraries that let you write integration code for any program you have. Search CPAN for Jabber and you'll see what I mean.
Can I interface Sun's product with my company's homebrew scheduling system and the online shop I wrote? I know that I can with Jabber.
Jim
-- My Weblog.
Yes, but what's wrong with using it's protocol. Jabber is a protocol, not a program. Interoperablity is always a good thing.
"for businesses which don't wish to rely on an outside network for their messaging"
They may not wish to rely on outside systems for internal communication but connections to outside IM systems may be essential. I won't lie I've not read the link yet. But my first though is how it would interact with other messaging systems.
The current biggies AIM, MSN, ICQ and Yahoo are no good as fragmented seperates - think back to BBS systems. Until they all sit down and decide to play together and use an Open standard it's not going to be as usefull as it could be. Untill then people will use what ever "frigs" they can to get them to interoperate such as Trillian (recommned the pro version by the way) or Jabbers connections.
Of course being HW focused if Sun push for an Open messaging standard touting their HW to power it all we could see some action but unfortunately they are a bit late in the game to weild that sort of power.
IM should interoperate and be as widespread as e-mail but it won't while everyone diggs in and backs their own standard.
.
"Things that you own end up owning you" - Tyler Durden (via Diogenes of Sinope).
the first part of its new enterprise collaboration platform to compete with Exchange and Domino. Dubbed 'Sun ONE InstantMessaging 6.0
First the abrupt jump from Solaris 2.6 to Solaris 8, and now the first version of a new product is dubbed 6.0! Someone needs to smack the marketroids at Sun upside the head with the news that version numbers aren't just there because they make a pretty sound when you say them, they're meant to convey information to the customer. Sun's engineers seem immune to this, Solaris 8 still reports itself internally as SunOS 5.8, which kinda makes sense. Microsoft are Sybase are also guilty of doing it.
I can imagine the meeting now:
Marketer: Version 2 is better than 1 right?
Engineer: Sure
Marketer: And version 3 is better than 2?
Engineer: Umm, usually.
Marketer: Great! So the higher the number, the better the product!
Ah, I remember the good old days when Sun competed on technology, not hype. Most people I know are still running 2.6 in production, there's simply not enough new stuff in 8 to justify anything more than calling it 2.8, but while it's easy to get sign-off on a minor version patch, major versions need a lot more regression (on paper at least) and who's got the time for that?
> ... frankly it's too late for a new entry.
I read many comments like yours on Slashdot, and I can understand why you say that. For typical slashdotters, yes, Sun's announcement feels like too late. If you live in a major city in US or its metropolitan area, perhaps that's how you feel. If you work in the IT industry, more so. But the reality is that we are still at the beginning of the information age. I truly feel that the market is wide open.
If you look beyond US metropolitan area (and other, what they call, developed countries), there is a huge opportunity. There does not seem to be a wide margin in the IT industry in US, but there is China. There's large part of EU. Potentially, Middle East, now that Iraq war is pretty much over. Just that... it's over 5 times bigger that the whole US. Market is wide open.
In addition, Sun does have competitive edge over Exchange and Domino. The fact is that MS is stuck in the world of 32 bit. They say IA-64 is coming, but even if it arrives tomorrow, how long do they take to make it really functional AND get support from other ISVs? Domino is a competitive product, but Sun is really kicking IBM's ass in high end because of its quality, openness, and price.
I am not a marketing analyst and I cannot or dear not predict the future, BUT I do say that "... it's too late" sounds a little premature.
A lot of pals I yap with ARE from the office. And what's preventing the "all day yap" is because hanging out at eachothers cubes would attract volumous attention.
I cannot imagine this increasing productivity. really cannot. People will be able to interrupt your legitimate work from the convenience of their own cube! and I doubt you can hide yourself (invisible) because that would totally be against the whole point of INSTANT messenging.
And before people goes about and talk about monitoring your IM logs -
1) you can speak in coded words. "new product announcement at the convention" = "movie that just got released" or something
2) IT depts are stressed as they are - and they won't have that kind of time
3) as for your boss, I am sure number 1 would work quite effectively - because if you work under a intelligent and capable boss, he would be smart enough to not have this whole nonsense in your dept anyhow.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
There isnt anything wrong with it that I have ever found. Its easy to extend and scale and making a client is very easy and can be as sexy as you want or need it to be (c, java, .net, perl)
Not that its proof of anything but Oracle has gone down this path as well on the integrated IM services.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
too little, too late .. and for this platform,
useless at any rate. what outfit that you know
of (that isn't stuck in the stone age) uses sun
as a primary desktop platform? .. few to none.
sun should just sell their assets off and run
today while the running is better than tomorrow.
hell, we're even switching to linux for everything,
and we're definitely not a small shop. not that
this necessarily precludes sun, but why couple
free OS with pricey hardware that is no more
stable than the cheaper stuff? .. expensive
support, little if any third party products or
competition - bleh. i loved sun back in the day,
but a new day came, and we're with it.
If you're going to use the protocol argument, then you should stick with the IETF's SIMPLE protocol.
It's like wanting jabber to integrate with yahoo mail and yahoo calendar, along with the privacy.
Not to slam jabber at all, just the right tool for the right job, eh? Just one that requirs sun software
Why not? Jabber is *not* an instant messaging protocol. It just happens to be useful for instant messaging
Jabber is a protocol for streaming XML. In this paradigm, why NOT use it as a transport for all sorts of other services, such as calendar information, etc.?
Ok, now for the privacy portion-- authentication and encrtyption are both supported by many Jabber clients and it would not be hard to impliment an X509-based encryption structure along with a directory service (AD, NDS, OpenLDAP, etc).
The problem is not with Jabber. It is with the fact that there are no open-source enterprise groupware servers to compete with Exchange. I really wish Sun would take the lead with open standards, but they have not because I am sure they want to create lockin.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Either. Sun see's it more fit to use a certain protocol as well as software to work with their suite. They may do a better job than Jabber, i can't say.
Point is, they don't want to use jabber, that's fine. The protocol they develop becomes their thing. WHo cares if you have to use it? If they did, they'd have to modify it to their whims and close source it anyway, since they probably won't offer support contracts for opensource software they didn't write.
No, it's like using analogies to say what you really mean. Jabber doesn't integrate with the whims of Sun for whatever reason they know of. Does jabber protocl support calendar's and email notifications better than something sun cooked up? Do the jabber clients out there (which I doubt they'd use) support the functions they want? It's a right fit issue, not a "it's crap or not" issue.
because they don't see it fit. For instance, why don't i use the jabber protocol for DNS? It's too heavy. A UDP packet is a LOT smaller than a bunch of tcp packets carrying jabber.
As much as jabber is a great protocol and all, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only