However, while discussions at IETF were stalled, [citation needed] Reuters signed the first inter-service provider connectivity agreement on . [citation needed] This agreement enabled AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger users to talk with Reuters Messaging counterparts and vice-versa. [citation needed] Following this, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL agreed to a deal in which Microsoft’s Live Communications Server 2005 users would also have the possibility to talk to public instant messaging users. [citation needed] This deal established SIP/SIMPLE as a standard for protocol interoperability [citation needed] and established a connectivity fee for accessing public instant messaging groups or services. [citation needed] , Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that by the 3rd quarter of 2006 they would interoperate using SIP/SIMPLE, [citation needed] which was followed, in , by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal in which Google Talk users would be able to communicate with AIM and ICQ users provided they have an AIM account. [citation needed]
- Combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM client application .
- Combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM server application. This approach moves the task of communicating with the other services to the server. Clients need not know or care about other IM protocols. For example, LCS 2005 Public IM Connectivity. [citation needed] This approach is popular in XMPP servers; [citation needed] however, the so-called transport projects suffer the same reverse engineering difficulties as any other project involved with closed protocols or formats. [citation needed]
Some approaches allow organizations to deploy their own, private instant messaging network by enabling them to restrict access to the server (often with the IM network entirely behind their firewall ) and administer user permissions. Continue reading “Most attempts at producing a unified standard for the major IM providers (AOL, Yahoo!”