IM Standards: Vendor's Are In A Different Reality
How many years have we been talking about interoperability standards for IM and presence? Why has the SIP/SIMPLE specification evolved so slowly? Why are vendors implementing their own versions of “rich presence” vs. working through the standards process (SIMPLE specifically)? Why do vendors find it so difficult to aggregate and federate presence in a fair and bi-directional manner without trying to gain an advantage by not sharing its extensions (Microsoft appears especially guilty here)? Why does Sametime cling to its proprietary protocol internally? Why does Microsoft not support XMPP in its gateway? Why do most communication vendors (e.g., Cisco) find XMPP so radioactive?
I think the Avaya/Jabber partnership should be specifically called out. Avaya really should be congratulated on its effort to shear off presence into its own server and aggregate both SIP/SIMPLE and XMPP. That is such a breadth of fresh air…
Seriously … the situation is an embarrassment to the industry. I wish vendors would stop whining or try to explain it away and “just do it”.
Michael Osterman posted an interesting piece today on Network World, "Standardizing instant messaging protocols". Basically, he makes the point that technology adoption increases rapidly after an industry settles on a single standard. And he wonders if the fact that we have two standards for IM interoperability, SIP and XMPP, has held back the overall market.
It's an interesting thought. And just to fact check the article, Sametime supports both XMPP and SIP in our Public IM Gateway. (Mike only included us in the SIP camp.)
No whining here from Jabber, Inc.!
As you point out, we are deeply involved in multi-protocol federation.
It is not how many protocols are used, but how open they are. There is a big difference between federation between systems using open, documented protocols versus proprietary, undocumented protocols and extensions. In the open case, it is clear what needs to be done. Federating with closed systems requires considerable guesswork and trial and error.
Ultimately, the market will resolve this issue. From a risk management standpoint, customers should be skeptical of products and systems designed around proprietary protocols. Vendor lock-in through proprietary standards has become repellent in many parts of the IT industry. As presence and real-time messaging continues to gain in importance, IT decisionmakers are likely to start resisting solutions based on closed protocols.
Posted by: Dave Uhlir | July 16, 2008 at 10:34 AM