Reviews : Instant Messaging & Collaboration :

The IM wars of 2003.

This is a war of standards, not of setting them, but of two competing and (somewhat) opposing standards. On one end is the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), an XML-based IM protocol that is touted for its simplicity. XMPP's biggest proponent is the Jabber Development Community that has created a large network of commercial and open-source messaging applications (and users) using XMPP. On the other end is SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), an extension of the voice over IP technology, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIMPLE is a much more complex implementation of IM, but one that includes support for items such as audio and video. SIMPLE is currently being supported by the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Sun and Novell, among others.

XMPP

XMPP, though more complete and easy to implement, is clearly the underdog of this battle. Currently very few major players (HP and Intel are by far the most noteworthy) have gotten behind it. Nevertheless, there are thousands of proponents in the open- source community and quite a few companies that have IM software based on this protocol. The core of this base is the Jabber C++ kernel, but a few companies offer other implementations of XMPP. The core strengths of XMPP are its inherent simplicity, the extensibility of using XML and its overall IM readiness (it's up-and-running all over the place). The weakness: audio and video are lacking and XML doesn't handle this type of information well, only text-based information.

SIMPLE

Contrary to it's nomenclature, SIMPLE is quite a complex implementation of IM. One has to wonder if that isn't of benefit to the big players, complexity inhibits competition. However, one item is true: SIMPLE handles audio and video and, quite frankly, my opinion is that this is not a small item as we move into the future. Streaming audio and video greatly enhance the collaborative aspects of IM, which is really driving this new "killer app". In addition to its complexity, SIMPLE relies on UDP as well as TCP, posing potential network issues.

What to do?

So as you can see, my initial quest turned into a bit of a quandary. What does one do in the midst of a standards war aside from wait for a winner to emerge? Ideally, if one could find something that utilizes both technologies (XMPP and SIMPLE--or at least SIP), but has an open interface to allow for customization as one sees fit. That would be perfect. On this quest, all roads led to Antepo's Accept.

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