AOL-Yahoo-MSN Messaging Unified... in the Workplace Only

bakreule writes "Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo! are teaming up to link their separate instant messaging services for use in the workplace, 'the first major step by the industry leaders to enable computer users to communicate with one another no matter which of the three systems they use.' Sound to good to be true? It is. 'What this does not do,' Root said (yes, that's his name), 'is the holy grail of instant messaging, which is to allow anybody on any network to send a message to anybody on any other network.' It seems that the system, which is aimed for corporations, involves some MS software which acts as an intermediary between the different systems. Sounds like a fancy version of all the open source IM clients out there."

Comments

Why not an Open initiative?

[garcia]

Sounds like a fancy version of all the open source IM clients out there."

No, it doesn't sound like gaim or any other client. It sounds like a centralized control center for tighter watching over employee's IM conversations. gaim doesn't automatically forward my AIM messages to someone on MSN or Yahoo without me having an account on each. This seems like it would do that. gaim doesn't log all my conversations from all networks and store that information in one spot so that my boss can watch what I am sending across the networks.

Why does MSFT need to be the one doing this? How about an Open initiative that wouldn't require the three IM giants? It would likely be less money, better for the employers, and operate with more features and less bugs.

Too bad the employers only trust those that shouldn't be trusted.

Re:Why not an Open initiative?

[Jahf]

If it uses middleware to translate between them, then it most certainly does sound like Jabber. GAIM, no, Jabber yes.

However even though this uses MS middleware, it could still be a good thing as it might make MSN/Yahoo/AIM less likely to break their protocols just to stymie the open source clients. Maybe not, maybe they will just tell MS to update their middleware, but no way to tell just yet.

Re:Why not an Open initiative?

[baudilus]

Correction: E-mail in most corporate environments is not usually actively monitored, which is why you never hear about someone being caught for something they sent. Separate from the government, corporations have to justify costs. Spending any amount of money for someone to read through e-mail is counterproductive (read: cuts into the bottom line). E-mail is usually monitored after someone is already suspected of something.

On a side note, we don't have a centralized IM chat server at my office, but I do know that MSN conversations are logged. IM messages are plain text, being sent over a network, over known ports. So just because you company isn't opting for the MSFT solution to chatting, doesn't mean your conversations aren't out in the open. Any network tech with 2 minutes of free time can do the same thing that you fear so much from Microsoft, without the added cost of the software.

Re:Why not an Open initiative?

[dschuetz]

If it uses middleware to translate between them, then it most certainly does sound like Jabber.

Except that Jabber doesn't allow an AIM user to talk to a Yahoo! user. Unless that's changed in the last couple of years (since I abandoned Jabber for Trillian). The problem isn't multi-system clients (like GAIM or Trillian). The problem isn't centralized logging (which Jabber "proxies" certainly can do, as another poster recounted). The problem is trans-system communication.

What's needed is something like this: "aim:david" or "yahoo:david" (yes, I'm avoiding using my real IM ID's :) ). But to do this, we'd need:

• Clients that can have trans-system buddies
• A server that can accept a message from a client bound for a different system, and route that to the different system
• A server that can accept a message from a different system's server, pull the IM destination out of it, and pass it on to that user's client

This isn't even beginning to address the question of passing presence information across systems.

Having not read the FA, I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about now. If they're coming up with their own implementation of such a system, and just expecting everyone else to modify their servers/clients to be compatible, then I'm not sure it'll work. If, though, there's a cross-provider effort to standardize on some of the above, then there's a chance it might just work.

Unless, of course, I missed something glaringly obvious. Wouldn't be the first time :)

That's cool, but it doesn't affect me

[trompete]

I was a trillian user for two years and have now been a Gaim user for a year. The only thing that would change for me is the number of sockets that my computer would maintain.

I wonder if this movement would also spark a movement toward disabling 3rd-party clients. That would NOT be good.

Trillian
Gaim

AOL-Yahoo-MSN Unified

[tpgp]

AOL-Yahoo-MSN Unified

Man I'd hate to see the baby.

Not to sure about this ...

[auburnate]

If I were AOL or Yahoo, I'm not so sure i would want Microsoft providing the software to provide the intermediary connections. In the light of all the wonderful IE exploits and such.

My $0.02 ... Nate

uh oh...

[IGnatius T Foobar]

"This lays the groundwork for instant messaging to become as widespread and useful as e-mail is today," said Taylor Collyer

If it becomes as "widespread and useful as e-mail" then that means I'm going to have spam popping up on my screen every three seconds. Goodbye, Instant Messaging.

In any case, this is all nonsense. AOL, Yahoo, and The Beast should all just implement the server-to-server protocol used by Jabber. It's on the IETF standards track and will eventually be used by everyone who isn't one of those three.

Actually, if one of the big three (probably the smallest of the big three, whichever that is) implemented the protocol, the other two would pretty much have to.

Jabber already does this and is an open protocol

[josevnz]

Hello to all,

This is welcomed news, but the people at Jabber (http://www.jabber.com) did something like this first. Using a Jabber client you can talk to the three other networks by using an special plugin installed on the server (http://www.jabber.org/user/userguide/).

Also Jabber is a very extensible platform that can be used almost for anything (like System monitoring, for example):

http://www.jabber.org/about/overview.php?PHPSESS ID =2517926c4f71caed9f6bff1af6843dbd

Also as the original poster mentions, Gaim already does this without problems (even when Yahoo decides to change their protocol, which is almost every 6 months :)).

Regards,

Re:Net Send

[stratjakt]

net send is a source of great fun in an office full of morons.

Name your computer something ominous like "SYSTEM_KERNEL_DAEMON", then do some creative net sends, like:

net send * This machine has performed an illegal instruction and will self destruct in 45 seconds.

etc, etc, and so on.

Hours of fun for the whole family.

Or, when one new employee was fired around here, the next day I named my machine to his login id and sent some:

net send * You cant fire me! You are all fucked now! You'll be sorry!

And watched the panic stricken manager types run up and down the hall screaming "he's in the computer! he's in the computer!".

Aah.. Good times.

SameTime

[PktLoss]

When I worked for a larger company we all used Lotus SameTime (often called sometime, as in it should work sometime), it worked quite well, and the integration between the client and corporate lists was really usefull.

IM clients are a happy comprimise between the phone and email. A phone nesesarily distracts the contactee from whatever they were doing, while many people only check for email every X minutes. An IM message doesn't have to pull them away from whatevery they are doing, and they can respond at an apropriate moment.

IM clients also provide more granular controll over your status, and display that status to others. With a phone you can answer, check call display and let voice mail handle it, or send all to voice mail. With IM you can be available, busy, do not disturb, away, etc. The fact that this is displayed to others can also allow them to make decisions on wether or not to bother you.

All in all I am glad to see greater acceptance of IM in the workplace

Think of this from the companies perspective

[Zapman]

There are lots of really valid reasons that don't involve big brother for companies to keep an eye on IM communications. First off, I know people in my company who commit financial transactions for the company over IM. It's completely stupid that they do this, but they do it none the less. An audit trail for the company's money is required.

The second thing I can think of is corperate espionage. Companies spend lots of money on products that audit email leaving the company, looking for sensitive documents, key phrases, etc. We really need the same thing for IM, if it's going to be used in a business context for business data.

I'd also love to see a promise that the chanel between me and the person I'm talking to is encrypted. I can do that with email: force TLS encryption from my email gateway directly to theirs.

These are all good things, and don't get to the 'big brother' complaints. Those will be there, and I believe that there will always be a free IM without these auditing requirements for people who don't need them.