IBM Lotus Sametime, AOL’s AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger Create World’s Largest Business Instant Messaging Community

IBM Lotus Sametime, AOL’s AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger Create World’s Largest Business Instant Messaging Community

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that IBM Lotus Sametime instant messaging customers can now communicate with users of AIM and the Google Talk™ instant messaging service and interoperability with Yahoo!® Messenger will be available in the coming weeks. Connecting the instant messaging communities will enable Lotus Sametime users to send and receive instant messages with, and view the presence awareness status of, more than 157 million instant messaging users worldwide.

Integrated access between Lotus Sametime and AOL’s AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger is possible through the use of both industry standards for instant messaging — the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) standard and the Session Initiated Protocol (SIP/SIMPLE) standard. Industry standards are propelling change and growth in the real-time collaboration industry, helping the technology evolve beyond its basic chat roots to the centerpiece for varied types of communication such as VoIP and Web conferencing. IBM is joining AOL, Google, Jabber and Yahoo! in support of the SIP/SIMPLE and XMPP standards.

“According to a recent global survey(1) of CEOs conducted by IBM, executives worldwide believe that to achieve effective growth they must communicate beyond corporate walls,” said Michael Rhodin, general manager IBM Lotus. “IBM is the first major enterprise vendor to use computing standards to connect over 70% of the worldwide instant messaging user base.” “Tens of millions of people around the globe use instant messaging each day to enhance their business communications,” said Brian Curry, vice president, Business Services, AOL. “By working together to connect Lotus Sametime users with the global AOL messaging community, we’re making it even easier for IM users to send messages across the street or across the ocean.”

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