Financial Companies Ask IM Companies To Work Together 259
sammy.lost-angel.com writes "From
this
CNET article: "Two weeks ago, six top financial institutions met privately with AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, IBM and other leading corporate instant messaging providers and urged them to build communications networks that interoperate." The article even talks about Jabber."
It's about time (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's about time (Score:2)
-
External FINANCIAL influence always makes a difference.
Yes, you are right. It always makes a difference, but makes difference for the wrong choice.The consideration about MS, AOL and Yahoo get paid is completely out of question IMHO. They want to make a paid service to become standard when there's a whole comunity (FreeSoftware comunity) avaiable for developing a brand new protocol to become the free concurrent, and maybe become the real standard.
When will they hear their technical consultants?
Re:It's about time (Score:2)
Something like 800 billion people using AIM.
Something like 80 people using Jabber.
Yeah, what in the world are they thinking?
Re:It's about time (Score:2)
I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:1)
Summary:
They are not good work tools, if you want to keep productivity high.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:1)
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2, Interesting)
They are also another vector for virus infection, unless you configure your firewall properly.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:1)
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:4, Insightful)
Additionally, I love it when people use this to communicate outside the building - rather that than the Cell going off during a meeting because the wife needs some fixings for dinner on the way home.
The reality is it depends on the maturity of your team. All of my team members are mature enough to use IM as a tool. Those who were not mature enough were fired after a warning. This applies to ANY communication tool, any violation of company codes.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any company that fires based upon the use of a communication tool deserves what will ultimately become of it, which is failure (apart from the criminal or sexually harrasing, of course). If someone is producing good quality whatever in good quantities, then it should be absolutely irrelevant if they are playing computer chess while chatting with their buddies about D&D. If, on the other hand, someone isn't producing, then it shouldn't matter that they put in 60 hour weeks (as is usually the case with non-producers: Martyrdom through incompetence), and that they sit starting hardcore at code from 8am until 6pm every day, they should be moved to a different job, or ultimately fired.
The way I manage is entirely output based, and no amount of ass kissing or excuse making can make me ignore a lack of contribution to the project, but on the flip side I don't care if someone works 12 hours a week and has slashdot on auto-reload: If the output is there, then how can they be faulted? Too many people bring a factory line mentality to software development, and unfortunately such a mentality is often based on envy: You have to keep everyone beaten down to the same level to ensure that the lowly doesn't feel green with envy.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2)
Exactly, and I wish more managers realized this.
My current managers have a reasonable handle on it, but I've had people in the past that simply did not understand that someone could be productive without constantly looking busy. I talk to friends outside the company via IM quite a lot during work hours, not to mention browsing slashdot, yet I'm still the most productive person in my department. Because I'm a good employee, my overseers turn a blind eye to pretty much anything I feel like doing as long as my work quality stays high. Other people in the department slacked off playing games and such when they really weren't good enough workers to afford the distraction, and they no longer work for the company. It's really that simple, and anyone who thinks the road to high productivity is rules upheld with an iron fist is just deluding themselves.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2)
However, I don't completely agree with what you said if you're paid by the hour. Now, a little fooling around never hurt anyone as long as they are productive anyway, but if I were a manager/etc. and I'm paying you $x per hour, I think I should be able to expect you to be working for almost all of the time I'm paying you for.
Trusting your employees (Score:2)
The fact is that aside from a certain initial novelty factor - most employees will spend most of their time focussing on their job. They'll occasionally use the IM for personal stuff, just like they make the odd personal phone call or email. If they abuse that then it'll show up in the quality of their work, because a few geniuses aside, most people can't make 2hours output look like 8. So there are always ways to spot and deal with lazy people. But if you start out assuming your workforce is lazy what does that say about you as an employer?
The remaining questions are - is it useful and is it safe. I suspect that it'll be more useful in some types of job than others. I work in Tech Support and we used to have a team based in 3 different countries. IM was very useful. Since then we've been centralised and we don't use it so much. (Note - we weren't ordered not to use it - we just stopped because it's no longer useful)
As for safety - it's definitely something that should be protected behind a firewall. I don't know the details of that but I assume it can be done.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2)
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:5, Informative)
how many users have communicated with people outside of work
And that is counter-productive? I have a close circle of personal friends who are all programming gurus. I consult with them about work problems all the time. And, I also BS with them.
Take away one and you take away the other. My gains in productivity from talking with them will be gone along with the time I waste communicating with them for recreation (or, maybe I'd just resort to e-mail or telephone calls instead).
Re:OCD breeding environment? Anyone? Beuler? (Score:2)
The thing about loppings of heads should have been more closely targeted towards the wannabe inclinations of the poster.
My segue'(sp?) sucked.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2)
How is this instant messaging any different than IRC? If I want to talk to people I hop on our private server and join the channel and talk away. As for people that aren't on IRC e-mail works just fine. If they're sitting in front of their desks chances are I will get a reply within a few minutes. I'd rather read my e-mail and reply when I have time than be a slave to IM popups all the time. Plus, do you really trust AOL, Yahoo, and MSN to see what you're chatting about, especially at work? I would think an IM system where you can setup your own private server and link it to external servers and ONLY route messages to external servers if they can't be reached on the private one would be a much more preferred solution for a standardized instant messaging protocol. But wait, how would they deliver ads then?
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2)
Your only response has been to call me a troll or say 'ready my 20 page paper.' Well if you had credible research you could use pieces of it here. So far i haven't heard anything credible.
I don't see how i'm being narrowminded. You stated something i disagree with. I have my experience to back up my point of view. You have offered nothing in your posts. Maybe if you said something that might have seemed like a fact i would have requested your paper to read more. But you never did, and you still haven't. Instead you simply try to ward me off as a troll. Its too bad they hide karma now; someone with Excellent karma usually is not a troll. OH well.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:3, Interesting)
They are not good work tools, if you want to keep productivity high.
Absurd. I'm a software developer, and like most software developers I'm an introvert. As such I have a desire to use forms of communications like email or instant messaging wherever possible, so I don't proclaim to speak for anyone and everyone, but rather for my "type": I would say, without the slightest ounce of doubt, that instant messaging (and its close cousin email) have been incredibly productive in the workplace. Why? While the reasons are several, the primary reasons are that they are instantaneous to send (no looking up a phone number, dialing, waiting for ringing...waiting...waiting for voicemail menu...talking for 35 seconds...hitting pound...1....2), they are asynchronous (they don't demand the time of the other person instantly, but rather effectively install queues in your workplace so that people can work most efficiently at given tasks. Of course every workplace has the work avoiding blamecaster who'll always be spinning his wheels idle, protesting to all who'll listen that he's "waiting on so and so". Such people should be fired immediately), and you can get to the root of the matter far quicker than you can using alternate methods of communication. I won't bother exploring any of these because they should be self evident.
Having said that, I have met some very firm resistant from "old schoolers", and alternately people who I would best describe as "bullshitters": I worked with one gentlemen (to loosely use that term) once who was a unbelievable pathological liar- He would spin such a web of bullshit that it was just baffling. However, I noticed that he would never reply to an email, or send an IM, or even leave a voicemail for that matter: It always had to be a "quick meeting". Social hackers love the control that physical or voice meetings allow them as well (a control that is lost in asynchronous messaging).
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2)
it's much more efficient to get up
and look for your coworker every time
you need to ask them something.
Re:I wrote a paper about IMs in the work place... (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh I can just imagine... (Score:1)
1) Open xterm
2) [tom@mitosis tom] msnaoltwnjsms &
(MSN AOL/Time Warner Netscape Jabber Sametime Messaging System)
Yeah right!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yeah right!!! (Score:2)
I beg to differ. I know that I'm not the only one who wants goverment to NOT work as a team. Most of my family concluded long ago that the goverment only does things that we do not want them to do. (Mostly spend my money) Sure every once in a while they do something good, but the large majority of the time they do not. Case in point: Passing those terrorist bills after 9/11/2001 that limit freedoms more than terrorism.
I wont' get into how only about 40% of the elligable population votes (in presidential election years, less in off years), Not to mention underage, fellons, and non-residents (citicians but I can't speel it:) who can't vote.
Re:Yeah right!!! (Score:2)
Re:Yeah right!!! (Score:2)
I'm not too fond of local goverment either. At least we have a little more control, but the federal goverment puts too much pressue on what local goverments can do.
I'm not sure I'd agree that the federal goverment does what the people as a whole want. I would say more they do what the people as a whole will let them get by with. With all the things that the goverment does, nobody has time to look at each one, I'm sure there are things (but I don't have the time to look close) that only a few people want, and the rest don't, but those who want it will vote to have it stay, while the rest of us don't know. The DMCA snuck in that way, I had no idea I had to care so much about that one issue until we discovered just how bad it was. I always wonder what other ones have got through that I'm not aware of.
I'd run for congress, but I'm unelectable. (I would keep my promise to make goverment small, and plenty of retired folks, farmers, etc would balk at specifics (while encouraging me on what they don't care about...). Still, I vote for those who will make a difference, which is rarely the big two.
Re:Yeah right!!! (Score:2)
What, you're not happy working 5 months out of every year to pay taxes? How dare you, you ingrate! Shut up and pay, peasant.
Maybe you don't like the federal government spending over 50% of the available US budget on imperial warmaking (er,... defense, that's it) on behalf of the US-based oil cartel? Well guess what, they bought this Administration, they're damn well going to get their moneys worth, and they don't care _what_ you might think about it. Don't like that? Well... you can just go pound sand.
Or, in November (and two years later, too), you can vote _for_ candidates who stand a chance of defeating slimy Republicans.
For the dense, that's _not_ Libertarian or Green party candidates. Voting for fringe ideologies just reelects the monsters, as the results of the 2000 elections should have burned into the conscience of every Nader voter. Congratulations,
I always thought of IM as productivity wasters (Score:1)
Re:I always thought of IM as productivity wasters (Score:2)
Before that, when I was working at a bandwidth provider that went spectacularly out of business, we used a MUSH in a similar fashion. Being that many people worked off-site, the MUSH was extremely effective.
Trillian (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Trillian (Score:1)
im (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:im (Score:2)
AOL for-fee service for corporations (Score:2)
That's smart. Far better a company keep paying AOL thousands a month than set up a Jabber server for, uh, nothing.
Good marketing model, fellows.
Trillian on Wine (Score:3)
Gaim! (Score:2, Informative)
John
Re:Gaim! (Score:2)
>natively? And without all the ads and other
>clutter... It supports AOL and (with plugins that
>come with it) MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, even ICQ and
>IRC...
Hmm... was unaware that gaim worked with all those IM systems; maybe they should change the name to grillian?
Re:Gaim! (Score:3, Informative)
I'd say go with Gaim right now (I don't, but then I like filing bug reports for KDE :) ), and check out Kopete in a few months.
Incidently, Jabber is a protocol, yes, but most servers have gateways to AIM, Yahoo, etc. They work fine - I was using Psi through charente.de (I probably have that server name name wrong), and would talk to all of my AIM, Yahoo and ICQ using friends. Again, Gaim still has the best support for all the features of the various protocols.
--
Evan (no reference)
Re:Gaim! (Score:2)
Everybuddy (Score:1)
Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
*laugh*
Unless your employees are simply wasting time, companies using IM software should have procedures and regulations for it. IE - forcing them to use one certain client. Problem solved, eh?
Re:Why? (Score:2)
One would also think (although I'll bet there isn't actually a regulation about this) that a financial firm requiring its customers to use proprietary technology from a company on which they are also doing financial analysis would be a bit of a conflict of interest. Not that *that* would ever happen on Wall Street....
AOL protecting profits (Score:2)
I work for one of those Large Financial corps (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I work for one of those Large Financial corps (Score:2)
Coming from AIM as my primary chat medium, that was ahuge hurdle to adopting Jabber personally. Now, I'm using Trillian Pro 1.0 [trillian.cc], happily.
Re:I work for one of those Large Financial corps (Score:2)
Re:I work for one of those Large Financial corps (Score:3, Insightful)
AFAIK, aim-t isn't even an option at the jabber.com / jabber.org servers. There's not really anything that can be done to prevent an IP address ban. From what I understand, these are explicit bans against the major Jabber servers, and are not necessarily related to the amount of AIM logins.
Coming from AIM as my primary chat medium, that was ahuge hurdle to adopting Jabber personally.
Depending on how you feel about open standards (and I hope a lot of us feel strongly towards them here), I encourage you to put in a little bit more effort
I recommend this especially to Trillian users like you, who probably have other Trillian-using friends that could all easily begin using Jabber. I agree it is tougher to convert your AIM-using Grandma to Jabber, but you Trillian users are natural rebels, right? Rebel! And keep Trillian around for talking to Grandma.
Personally, I used to use ICQ for a long time, then I began using Jabber and the ICQ transport. Later, I decided to start using AIM and MSN transports also (I figured, hey, why not?). Bad move.. this brought me knee deep in proprietary IM. I strongly suggest NOT using IM services that you weren't already using. Ie, if you start using Trillian or Jabber, do the world a favor and please don't just start using every single service. This only promotes them.
So one day I decided to bite the bullet and unregistered from ALL the transports I was using. Now I use Jabber only. It was tough in the beginning (well, a lot less people bothered me on IM, hehe), but eventually I rebuilt my contact list. All my friends use Jabber now and so does my family. Right now I've got over 100 Jabber contacts, although I can't say I talk to a lot of them. I don't recommend this route for everyone, but it sure feels good to be free of AOL once and for all (and there was much rejoicing).
-Justin
Re:I work for one of those Large Financial corps (Score:2)
I'd only expect the people that care about promoting open IM to do this. You may or may not be that type of person.
Sametime et. al (Score:2)
IBM has been developing a new Sametime client for internal use only for quite some time. It runs on Sash [ibm.com], IBM's RAD (sort of) platform. The external "weblication gallery" there is a subset of the internal one. What's really nice is that the "weblication manager" automatically updates managed apps a few times a week, without requiring a reboot. Its really very cool. Here [ibm.com] is the Redbook on Sash.
AOL (Score:1)
funny isn't it (Score:1)
Use Gaim (Score:3, Insightful)
Try proofreading ... (Score:2)
Re:Try proofreading ... (Score:2)
win32 alpha port released today (Score:2)
Re:win32 alpha port released today (Score:2)
They need to fix the logging directory - can't have a directory called ".gaim" in Windows.
Re:win32 alpha port released today (Score:2)
There are no other plugins, at least that I can find, so I only have ICQ and AIM working on the windows version.
This is badass though because I have to use a windows box at work and I was stuck with multiple chat programs. (I know there's trillion or whatever, but I didn't like it).
Re:win32 alpha port released today (Score:2)
gaim for windows seems pretty cool so far, don't think I'll be switching just yet though.
From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. There doesn't have to be and there shouldn't be. The article mentions that IM should be like E-Mail. Well, Microsoft and Yahoo don't get paid just because some guy using a yahoo e-mail account e-mails someone using a hotmail account.
My advice to these "finanical" guys seeking standards - ignore it. The problem will solve itself in a matter of time. IM is too big of a thing to be contained within proprietary networks. As these all in one messenger programs like Trillian [ceruleanstudios.com] become the de-facto standard, companies like Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo will have to give up their futile efforts of hording all their IM customers to themselves. Or better yet, if (when?) Jabber [jabber.org] becomes the real standard, the corporations wont even have to worry about Microsoft or AOL anymore.
Re:From the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhh, of course they do. You can't check your mail on Yahoo or Hotmail without going to their Web site, which contains advertising banners. The companies are getting paid to run those ads.
(Whether you choose to see them or [phroggy.com] not [mozilla.org] is another matter, of course, but most people do, so the companies do get paid.)
What this is really about (Score:3, Insightful)
Like so much we read today, this is really about control. The financial institutions have large investments in AOL/Time-Warner, Microsoft, and Yahoo. They would like nothing more than for an elite club to control and profit from instant messaging. They know that if something isn't done quick, Jabber will take over as the de facto standard and eliminate the profit opportunity.
It looks to me like they are trying to form an organization, similar to the DVD-CCA, which would dictate payment and conduct requirements amongst member companies. The organization (let's call it Chatter) would form an artificial barrier to entry for startup vendors. If you want to enter the instant messaging market, you will have to pay a modest fee ($100,000) to read the protocol specifications, and agree to pay an annual fee to communicate with the other vendors.
Each member of Chatter would maintain their own servers. If you want your servers to communicate with other Chatter members, you have to become a member yourself. It does not matter if you're running a Jabber server, AIM server, or some other instant messaging server. If you want to communicate with the vast majority of IM users, you have to join Chatter.
In the end, almost all instant messages will be filtered through a few small companies. In order to pay for the artificial costs (and of course generate extra revenue), vendors will force advertisements upon their customers, track who people communicate with, and otherwise turn all aspects of life into a commercial venture. Who knows, maybe they'll also archive conversations for law enforcement.
What needs to be done, is for someone to smack them hard with an anti-trust suit. Of course, we all know that will never happen. If people would just switch to Jabber (before the formation of an organization like Chatter), this would all become a non-issue.
Re:What this is really about (Score:2)
Re:What this is really about (Score:2)
This is true. I originally started writing assuming that AOL was trying to monopolize the IM industry, while Microsoft et al were trying to do the same thing. Whether it's a conspiracy or not does not matter. If the major IM vendors go ahead with an interoperable standard, the result is likely to be no different than the consipiracy I described.
Here's your problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, just like they get paid for hosting all of our web pages, email, and ft.... Wait a second, we run our own servers for those things! Why the heck can't we have an IM system that's the same way? Run our own darned IM gateways/server, and just include it as part of your address (whoops - screen name, can't have anything technical sounding). User@server has worked well enough for email, heck with an LDAP3 directory backing it, email your address could easily be mapped to the IM presence on your server/gateway. If you really wanted to get fancy, add an IM record type to DNS.
Thinking like this is just plain stupid - there's no possible reason why this couldn't work without relying on MS/AOL/Yahoo to run our servers for us... Except they beat us to it. So how do we convince those planning to spend $$ to do it in a responsible fashion?
Re:Here's your problem... (Score:5, Informative)
You've just described Jabber. Anyone can run a server. It uses user@server email-style addresses. Servers communicate between themselves as in email; this can be turned off for Intranet usage. It uses SRV DNS RRs which are a generalization of email's MX RRs. I think LDAP integration in the existing servers is poor so far, but that's an implementation detail and can be improved later.
Thinking like this is just plain stupid - there's no possible reason why this couldn't work without relying on MS/AOL/Yahoo to run our servers for us... Except they beat us to it. So how do we convince those planning to spend $$ to do it in a responsible fashion?
Jabber is being pushed toward standardization in the IETF, as the article mentioned. I think the situation will improve greatly after the IETF working group for it is created.
Re:Here's your problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, even windows has the popup messaging protocol that's been around since at least WFWG, and I can still talk to windows boxes using Kopete today!
Re:Here's your problem... (Score:2)
Re:Here's your problem... (Score:2)
Re:Here's your problem... (Score:2)
This is, of course, exactly right.
Why? They're different formats? (Score:2)
The point is to have choice. Just because something becomes popular, lots of users start using it, and there is competition doesn't mean they have to interoperate or anything. Sure that would be a cool feature, but thats up to the developer, not the users. I don't go telling Linus Torvalds I want him to make sure Linux runs Windows binaries natively, at any cost.
Its not the telephone system, its not an essential service that all should have free access to. Hell, everyone still has free access to use AOL IM AND MSN, AND YAHOO! AND JABBER. They're only complaining because its a "hassle" to have all those programs installed to chat.
What next? The government decides AIM should interface with the public phone system so users without computers can still chat? Give me a break. There are no monopolies here. Its good healthy competition and it should remain like this. I wasn't forced to use AOL, I wasn't forced to use MSN, and I certainly wasn't forced to use Yahoo!. I'm still not even forced to have a home phone. Alright, enough ranting.
Whatever.
Re:Why? They're different formats? (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason the government stepped in on AOL is because they are so dominant. It is MUCH harder to enforce a standard this late in the IM game. Back in the early days of the public Internet, many services had incompatible/closed email systems (Prodigy, AOL, Compuserve, etc). Eventually they wised up and all agreed to use SMTP, but this was probably only because SMTP was already an established standard. It is much harder to wedge Jabber in as a standard today, when you've got millions already using the closed systems.
I should add here that, for example, AOL does not offer POP3. They still use a proprietary email client. In much the same way, they can continue to use Oscar (the AIM protocol) internally for their users (and have all sorts of internal "value-added-competition-healthy" services), but they really ought to talk Jabber to the rest of the world.
Anyhow, there's not much to debate here. Jabber is going to be accepted by the IETF soon, so finally we'll have an official standard. However, only time will tell if the big boys of IM will start using it...
Re:Why? They're different formats? (Score:2)
Re:Why? They're different formats? (Score:2)
If your friends were on different long distance services (Sprint, AT&T, MCI, GTE), would you think it reasonable to have 4 different phones just so you could talk to them?
hmm...Mary is on the blue 900 Mhz cordless, Joe is on the wall phone in the kitchen, Jim can only be reached from the 2.4Ghz, and Jill from the cellphone.
oh yeah...that would work REAL well.
the wheel (Score:2)
Re:the wheel (Score:2)
Re:Article (Score:2)
I love the headline (Score:2)
I can't wait for..
Financial giants told to shove it
Seriously, where do these jackasses get off?
Uhh..a united IM service from United Coders? (Score:2)
Wake up and smell the standards (Score:2)
There is no compatibility problems between chat systems just like there is no compatibility problems with email. It's just closed email systems already disappeared, and closed messaging system are still there -- but people who rely on them deserve to suffer from their closedness.
Re:Wake up and smell the standards (Score:2)
Re:Wake up and smell the standards (Score:2)
IRC doesn't support a lot of the functionality of AIM, it's much less convenient for most of what I use AIM for
What functionality is in AIM and not in IRC? By IRC, of course, I mean "what can be reasonably done with it using existing clients and minimal scripting", not "what comes by default with the only IRC client I have seen 5 years ago".
and maybe I don't always want everyone to know my IP address?
Server doesn't have to disclose it, and you can proxy the connection if you are paranoid. Not that it matters for any reasonable purpose that financial institutions may have.
Lazy financial companies (Score:2)
While their at it, why don't get demand that all keyboard manufacurers all use the same exact layout. Or that all cars use the same size/type tires?
The plan for NextGen IM (non)service (Score:2, Interesting)
Not client P2P, but server P2P. Follow the SMTP/IRC model. Anyone, ISP, company, whomever, can set up an IM server, just like they currently set up email servers (hell, you can probably combine the two.) Your IM name is similar to email address user@server. The client logs in to their IM server (user1@server1). When they try to lookup another user (user2@server2), the server opens a connection to server2.
If done right, all connections should be SSL encypted. And no more than 2 servers involved in any conversation. Like SMTP, the client uses standard protocol to talk to server and can log into any server he has an account with. The servers talk to each other and can negotiate common set of features (again like SMTP).
Like SMTP, this model is pretty scalable, and independant of a central server/service. But unlike SMTP, it can be build to be near real time and reliable and without large legacy overhead associated with email.
Unlike IRC, there is no need to keep a large number of servers always in sync for every message. A lifespan of the message is between client1 - server1 -server2 - client2.
The protocol is open so anyone can run their own server, their own client, etc. Large company like AOL/Yahoo/etc. can sell/give away their own accounts (like email accounts now) but any ISP can easily throw in this as service. No matter who your provicer is, you can communicate with anyone.
For a large company, like the financial companies mentions, it would be easy to run an internal server that can have secure connections with their partners - one that never even has to leave private networks - like internal email or in the olden days Lotus Notes peering modem networks (anyone still remember those?) . The security implications of this alone are worth the trouble for them. And if they are concerned with logging everything, it would be as easy as logging email if they are running their own servers (I do not like this, but I am sure it will be needed).
All in all, this is not all that different from SMTP, but SMTP is aging and has too much overhead to accomplish this. But it will be duplicating much of SMTP purpose and I can even see it replacing SMTP all together.
The two biggest problems I see is a - the big guys will not like this - the only way to shove ads down your throat is to make you use THEIR service and THEIR client - and there will be no reason to. But if it gains enough momentum, it can happen. The bigger problem I forsee is SPAM. Not sure how to keep it down without compromising the whole model.
It's my dream, what do ya think?
-Em
Re:The plan for NextGen IM (non)service (Score:2)
I'm not going to flame you, but I am going to tell you that yes, you just described Jabber exactly. I send an IM to my friend bob@bobchat.com, and my IM server, talks to the server located at bobchat.com and passes the IM, which in turn passes it to Bob, if he's online, if he's not online, then it just holds onto the IM for him until he is.
The protocol is completely open, it's 100% XML.
Another nice Jabber feature is that people can't get "presence" info from you (they have no idea if you're signed on, away, or what-not) unless you allow them. So the added privacy is nice too.
So why don't you head on over to jabber.org and set yourself up a server. Jabber even supports Whiteboards now.
Usenet (Score:2)
--Blair
AIM interoperability (Score:3, Interesting)
External motives (Score:2, Funny)
Assnine. Really. (Score:2)
Internal IMs (Score:2)
"Peer to peer network messenger" [codeguru.com]
IM in banks... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. the messages
It's not about just messaging "wassup" and other time-wasters back and forth to people. It's often two traders on different sides of the floor communicating prices back and forth, being able to IM clients from some research tool, broadcasting large market events/news to everyone at once, tech support getting IMed when systems start going through the death throes (followed by pages, etc). It might be getting IM'd and having the message go to a pager if you're away from your desk, or to email if your pager is down.
2. productivity
Working on multinational teams, or in different buildings, or using chatrooms to say stuff like "I'm taking down the test system" when you don't want to disrupt the guy next to you (and let 10 other developers descretely know what the story is) enhance productivity. Sure, there may be some bullshit floating around on IM, as well, but investment bank IT people are pretty industrious as a whole (at least from what I've seen), and a good number of employees over the entire firm take desk lunches -- implying they'll stay on task pretty well.
3. logging/external service providers
A big advantage to running an IM through your firm is that you can log everything (good for SEC, etc). I sincerely doubt that the banks are looking at having all of their internal stuff go through MSN/external or AOL/external. Anything that happens is going to be kept local unless it HAS to go outside.
4. The current mess
My company runs an proprietary chat server, jabber, sametime, and some yahoo gateway, and probably more crap that I don't know about. It'd be BRILLIANT if everybody (including clients) could standardize on one message format -- it could save all of us loads of trouble.
5. jabber
As good as jabber is in theory, the open source server components used to be pretty rough (last fall). The commercial stuff might be nice, but I remember spending loads of time hacking at the XDB/XML database and thinking "Damn, this is really not flexible for enterprise-level usage" (i.e. 20-80,000 users, multiple continents/offices/divisions). It would be nice if everyone standardized on it and everything was made bank-reliable (a system going down can literally mean millions of dollars lost). Maybe all the banks should devote a few good programmers each to fixing it up, or donate a mil to the jabber foundation or something.
Just a few random points (I'm in a hurry)
Make it peer-to-peer, and use what you have. (Score:2)
With the current available OPEN protocols, there no reason why it can't be achieved.
Use e-mail (SMTP+POP/IMAP), and TALK.
Talk is peer-to-peer. No need to go through a server that can be brought down.
The e-mail part is to disseminate your IP address when it changes. The chat application simply e-mails your IP address to your correspondant's e-mail addresses; the chat client looks periodically for those specially marked messages, and updates it's own IP address database.
Big banks need not worry, as they have fixed IP addresses; their small fry, when they connect, simply sends out a flurry of small messages to all the correspondents.
And to remove the risk of flaky ISP mail servers, the program could connect directly to the big company servers; a special protocol could be used in case the ISP blocks port 25; heck, make it HTTP on port 80!
This way, the system is completely open, and doesn't need any commitees to implement in three years.
...request to make aquisitions easier? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds to me like they want to make the IM companies easier to acquire. (How you can build a company on something as nebulous as IMing is beyond me.)
Financial companies??? (Score:2)
People, if you need to communicate within your company with some sort of IM, just set up an IRC server for pete's sake!!!
Trillian is and will stay free. (Score:3)
I will pay for Trillian if and when there is a Trillian for Linux.
Re:Trillian is and will stay free. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Seriously... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:MS has already made attempts at playing nice (Score:4, Interesting)
In an alternate universe, this is going on:
1) MSN Messenger (MSNM) interoperates with AIM.
2) MSNM is welded into XP.
3) MS says, "Hey, Windows users! Why bother to download AIM when you can just use MSNM, which is already in XP and lets you send IMs to your AIM-using friends?"
4) Lazy users, content to just use what's already there, abandon using AIM in droves because hey, they don't have to download MSNM.
5) MSNM becomes the dominant IM app.
6) AIM usage drops. AIM ad revenues sink. AIM development budget and staff is cut. AIM starts lagging behind MSNM, feature-wise. AIM becomes IM also-ran.
7) MSNM gradually adopts a new protocol that is DMCA-protectable to lock out 3rd-party clients.
8) After the new protocol is in place, one day MSNM users can suddenly no longer IM people using AIM. Microsoft PR spews forth some mumbo-jumbo about 'IM technology heading off in a different direction' as an explanation.
9) A subsequent Windows version or service pack renders AIM inoperable. AIM, long un-updated, finally has a stake driven through its heart.
10) Time to start charging for use of MSNM.
~Philly
Re:MS has already made attempts at playing nice (Score:3, Interesting)
This is part of the reason that, for years, MSFT allowed rampant pairacy the Office suite. It was not about mindshare. For every copy of Office out there, the value of the copy of Office that some business legally bought off the shelf becomes more valuable because there are more people whom they can interchange documents with. This means that it is more likely that the next person will buy a copy of Office. This is why fax machines were originally sold in pairs.
Now AOL has had a history of cutting Trillian off from AIM while MSN gives the facade of playing nice. If MSN helps trillian keep current, then they are increasing the value of the MSN messenger client, thus indirectly hurting AIM. Therefore MSFT is using AOL's moves to isolate AIM as the tools for their (AOL's) own demise. Nice.
Re:ICQ? (Score:2)
These days Instant Messaging is something everyone I know uses - instead of "call you tonight" it's "talk to you on MSN tonight". 99% of the people I know who use IM in Australia use MSN, and I think that's mostly because "everyone uses it", so, even if they dislike MSN, they use it anyway in order to talk to everyone.
In the last two years my contact list has multiplied by 10, as EVERYONE uses it, probably as much, or MORE than they would use the telephone (most people I know are under 20).
A friend I know from the US who lives here now told me that MSN however was not "the standard" for IM communication there however. He said AOL had the lion's share of the IM users.
I still have an ICQ account and jabber account, however I really don't have a need for them, as there are probably only about 5 contacts in total on these services that aren't on my MSN list.