GoogleTalk + Jabber + LibJingle + AIM + iChat = what?
Google Press Center: Press Release : Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met;

Here we go. Sit back and watch Googletalk take over and dominate the IM, PC VoIP and Video chat market. Google talk is based on Jabber so lots of clients can talk to the Googletalk servers for chat. Then we get LibJingle and the Jabber XMPP audio extensions. So lots of clients can talk to the Googletalk servers for audio. Now we have Google+AOL bringing AIM to the party so that AIM and Googletalk users can chat and talk to each other.

Now we move into unannounced territory. Apple bolt libjingle into iChat so that Chat users can also use voice with all the other chat clients circling around Google. LibJingle then gets extended to video (which should be easy. It's just another codec). And this whole group are now doing presence, chat, audio and video. Finally Yahoo throws in the towel and joins in leaving Microsoft and Skype out in the cold. eBay cans Skype and takes the hit on their share price leaving just Microsoft and the Google conglomerate. But by that time nobody is using the Google client, they've all switched to Gaim, Trillian, Adium and half a dozen others. And they all talk MSN as well. Google starts using all that dark fibre they've been buying and using their existing relationships with the big carriers to offer *really cheap* IM-voice to POTS interconnect. And as well as your 2Gb of gmail you can have 2Gb of voice ad video mail.

The confusion in this starts with the Google, Jabber server interconnect. If they give this up, they can't maintain the lock on the customer. But if they don't do it, there'll be a lot of complaints. Then there's the question of whether they can ship early and ship often. Even if they expect lots of people to use 3rd party clients, they really need a reference implementation. Having a lead GAIM programmer on board ought to help here. But I don't see any evidence of Google being able to build and ship client side software. And right now Googletalk is still just a proof of concept. August 23, 2005 when Googletalk launched seems a long time ago now. Where's v0.2?

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[ 21-Dec-05 6:46pm ] [ , , , ]