There's been buzz on Google releasing an IM product of some sort (other than the "Hello" client which doesn't really count… do you know anyone who uses it as their main chat protocol?), and now it looks like they've been spotted running a Jabber server. The Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP) is open source technology, and presumably anyone with a Jabber enabled chat client (Trillian, GAIM, e.g.) could access the server — not just users of the mythical Google IM client. Also, Jabber appears to have buzz as the platform of choice for transmitting voice over IM, which leads to the theory that Google plans a voice enabled IM product of some sort to compete with similar functionality in clients from Yahoo and MSN. Whatcha think? Is Google getting set to release a Skype-killer?
Google about to launch IM and voice service?
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. My money today is on AOL+AIM+Apple to build the Skype killer. I don't believe anyone else has the smarts. Doubtless that will change tomorrow.
Posted at 8:05PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Julian Bond
3. eeeeeek I'm not sure AOL and Apple should ever belong together in the same sentence. ;) OK, even joking aside... it just makes me cringe! :)
Posted at 8:05PM on Dec 18th 2005 by barb dybwad
1. If true, I'd be interested to see how they will differentiate their product. Certainly if they can tie in the chat technology with their Gmail product (think voice mails, faxes, etc. saved into your gmail account), they might be onto something. Perhaps that's why Gmail is still in beta - because it might become more than just an email product.
Personally, I use the aol protocol and have an Apple iSight using iChat, so what advantage would Google's product have if I can already chat with people with both audio and video capabilities?
Posted at 8:05PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Rob Fay