E-mail style universal interoperability would add huge
value for users, says Jack Schofield
Can Google change the world of instant messaging? With last
month's launch of Google Talk, in a first beta version, it is going
to try.
At the moment, instant messaging is being crippled by a
Balkanisation of the market that is incompatible with users'
needs.
Running an instant messaging system is like being thrown back to
the 1980s, when you needed a Prestel account to send e-mail to
other Prestel users, a Compu-serve account to write to Compu-serve
users, a Telecom Gold account for ITT Dialcom users, an AOL
account... and so on.
When the use of internet e-mail took off, everyone could
communicate with everyone else, and proprietary mail services
either adapted or died.
Today, many instant messaging users still have to join more than
one service - the main options include AOL's ICQ and AIM, Yahoo and
Microsoft's MSN Messenger.
Although some client programs can work with more than one
service, such as Trillian, instant messaging still lacks the
universal interoperability that makes e-mail - and the post and
telephone services - so valuable.
It is a common problem because real services tend to precede
standards, and early players in the instant messaging market had to
make it up as they went along. However, this is no excuse for not
agreeing common gateways, which AOL, the market leader, has
blocked.
But times are changing because the internet now has a standard:
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), specified in
RFC's 3290-93. XMPP is based on the Jabber open source messaging
protocols, and Google Talk is based on XMPP.
Jabber enables any company to run its own instant messaging
server behind a firewall. It has attracted some notable users, such
as AT&T, EDS, FedEx, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and Sun. However,
it has never looked like gaining the market power needed to change
the instant messaging market. Google could do that.
Google Talk is allied to Google's Gmail service, so all users
must have a Gmail account. However, they do not all have to run
Google Talk software, which is only available for Windows 2000 and
XP. Linux and Mac OS X users can use Jabber-compatible client
software instead - though only for instant messaging, not for voice
chat.
As a late entrant to the market, Google is taking baby steps
forward. So far, Google Talk users can only send instant messaging
to people registered on Google's servers, not those on Jabber
servers. Also, rather than putting its instant messaging servers on
the public Jabber network, Google is signing up partners under a
federation programme.
However, Georges Harik, Google's director of product management,
assures me that the intention is to make Google Talk an open
service where members of the community can communicate without
gatekeepers.
It is what the instant messaging market should be. And if Google
cannot make it happen, it will at least give Jabber a boost.
Jack Schofield is computer editor at The Guardian