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IBM announced today that users of IBM Lotus Sametime instant messaging will now be able to chat with users of the AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk instant messaging platforms.

In the coming weeks, support will be expanded to include Yahoo's instant messenger product as well. This provides private corporate Sametime communities the ability to connect with the aforementioned public networks, thus allowing users to exchange instant messages and have a combined "buddy list" to check online status of friends and colleagues.

IBM joins a list of vendors supporting both

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the XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) and SIP/SIMPLE (Session Initiated Protocol) standards. These vendors include AOL, Google, Yahoo, and Jabber. Supporting both instant messaging standards will allow Sametime users to reach 70 percent of the global Instant Messaging market. Currently, IBM is the only enterprise vendor to support both standards.

"We're utilizing the power of the network to collaborate with 157 million users worldwide," said Akiba Saeedi, Program Director, Real-Time Collaboration, IBM Lotus. "Back in the old days, email was proprietary. You could only send within one system. \Eventually it became federated and you could email everyone using the same standards. IM will go the same way, and we're purposely being a leader in that federation."

That said, support for rival Microsoft's instant messaging platform is noticeably absent. When asked if the lack of connectivity to Microsoft's MSN Messenger service was a technical or political hurdle, Saeedi stated that it was neither.

"These aren't technical issues or political," Saeedi said. "These are simply business agreements that we've put together with other vendors. We currently have agreements that connect us to the majority of IM users worldwide."

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