I read an article by Davey Winder on the ITPro website today about the recent announcement by IBM that it’s Sametime server will support both the XMPP and SIP/SIMPLE instant messaging protocols, out of the box, allowing free access to interoperability with Yahoo, AIM and GoogleTalk users. This is, apparently, set to create the world’s largest business IM community.
However, the article bemoans the absence of Microsoft-based IM users
Not so great if you happen to be a user of MSN Messenger or Live Communication Server though, as IBM has not included Microsoft in its chat strategy.
Now anyone who has read this blog will know that I have a background in Lotus Domino consulting and have voiced criticism of Microsoft’s marketing strategies. That may be construed as bias, but I prefer to consider myself selective.
Anyway, I would like to point out one fact that seems to have been overlooked by Mr Winder. Microsoft are carrying out their usual strategy with open standards, in this case the SIP/SIMPLE standard adhered to by the other IM players mentioned above. That strategy can be summarised as embrace, extend and extinguish. There is an initial show of welcoming the standard with open arms, followed quickly by MS-specific extensions that are most definitely non-standard resulting in the creation of a closed and proprietary ’standard’ where Microsoft dictates what goes, and always to it’s own benefit.
Bearing that in mind, I believe IBM are perfectly right to open up Sametime to standards-compliant IM systems. If Microsoft wants to join in, then let it do exactly the same, and without charging it’s users as it does now. After all, why should IBM have to open it’s product up to a non-standard competitor ? In the short term it may be beneficial, but in the long term it most certainly isn’t.
