Instant Messaging – IM @ Work

IM – Open Source

In general I am not a fan of Instant Messaging (IM). That said, I am not unsympathetic to the benefits that can be realized, especially in a decentralized / virtualized work environment.  For any number of reasons I consider the public IM services such as AOL, MSN, Skype etc. more of a nuisance than a service.

So, while hunting for something we could deploy here at ME, I started looking for an Open Source solution. I came across jabber. This pup has morphed into an impressive creature which became the XMPP Standards Foundation.  XMPP stands for ‘Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol’.  And since a protocol not an implementation makes I hunted further and found …

Openfire by Jive Software

Visited the site, looked at documentation, watched a flash demo.  I am convinced enough to try.  Together with the Asterisk Plugin, this looks like a tool that would integrate really well with the Star*PBX product.  So, we can use it, and incorporate it in an existing product. Sweet.

IM @ Work

This is a catchy phrase to promote awareness of this technology.  I can’t wait to deploy it and start pushing the possibilities.

Stay tuned.