VOIP, not just IM, moving towards open standards?
Google and Skype – interoperability a possibility?
Unfortunately, I share the concern of others that the wording is “explore”. I had hopes for a more aggressive position, but it’s too early in the relationship and the companies involved don’t want to ‘over-promise, under-deliver’.
Still, this means good things for all of us. For example, some of the IT folks in my company are quite hostile to Skype. I’m with them on this, as I don’t like all the resources it eats up, or other problems it causes. It’s not just my company that has a problem with this either.
On the other hand, I’m a big fan of Google Talk, and would like to see it used more. One really great way for it to grow is for it to inter-communicate with other IM clients / networks. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but think of it this way: I would like to use Google Talk instead of Gaim, Skype, etc. Unfortunately all my contacts are already on those other networks, so I either try to force them all to change (yeah right), run several clients (hello slow computer), or don’t get to use Google Talk because I don’t have friends on the network. If I could talk to the other networks through Google Talk, suddenly I can decide which client I prefer, and other people can choose something different that meets their needs, and we can still talk!
The other thing to note is that this announcement goes beyond the XMPP support Google already brought with GTalk’s introduction. Not only do they have a commitment to an open standard for IM (text chat), and not only are they helping define an open standard for voice / other interaction (Jingle), but now here’s another step towards real interoperability BETWEEN VOIP CLIENTS, WITHOUT THE ‘OLD’ PHONE NETWORK INVOLVED AT ALL.
Imagine a world where IM or VOIP is just like email or the telephone. It doesn’t matter if your friend uses Cingular or Verizon, you can still call her from your AT & T phone. It doesn’t matter if your business partner has an @comcast.com email, or an @mylastname.com email.
Speaking of which, along with my own domain, I have a new IM name: step@ransomedhome.com. It’s mine, I own it, I can take it with me as long as I own my domain name. So if you want to email or IM me, you can use the same contact information. :) See how great having an open IM network would be?!
