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David Hersh, CEO of Portland, Ore.-based Jive Software, said the IM and presence software maker has always supported the open source movement, which in turn has played a large role in Jive's development. Jive's Messenger server has been a commercial product since its 2002 inception, but it is XMPP-compatible, with a reputation for scalability and stability. Jive also provides its Smack XMPP client library as open source under the Apache license.

"When we made a business decision not to pursue the enterprise IM market -- we instead have focused on live sales and support interactions with customers from a company's Web site -- it became clear that the server was less important from the financial perspective for us but potentially very useful to the development community, and useful in helping to increase the adoption of the XMPP standard," Hersh said in an email to NewsForge.

Hersh said the company's ongoing strategy continues to center on XMPP, its Jive Messenger based on the protocol, and Jive's open source XMPP client library, which will all serve as a base for future Jive products.

While similar open source strategies have brought cries of "abandonware," Jive has a history with open source and the Jabber developer community.

"We have been involved with the Jabber community since Messenger was initially created, so it was very exciting to them that there would be another open source server available, besides Jabberd," Hersh said. "So far, the reaction has been exceedingly positive -- quite a number of 'Wow' and 'Fantastic!' comments in our forums, and people are already signing up to submit code. It's a big win to have the full stack of a high-quality client library and server."

Hersh said by open sourcing Smack and now licensing Messenger under the GPL, the company's aim has been to increase adoption of the XMPP standard.

"Our business will be focused only on one part of the overall puzzle, but we hope some of the large communities out there will start bundling XMPP with their servers and applications for standard IM," Hersh said. "As the overall adoption grows, so will our business."

Hersh said Jive believes XMPP is easily the most powerful and practical standard for IM, evidenced by deployment into large developer communities, thousands of implementations, and a proven track record that includes IETF ratification.

"SIP/SIMPLE isn't as developed or proven at this point," Hersh said of rival standards. "However, it is on the rise because it is better at managing VoIP transactions. We anticipate there being solid gateways between the protocols, as opposed to companies having to choose one protocol."

Radicati Group analyst Genelle Hung said Jive is in a good market space but remains a small player compared to proprietary IM providers and products such as ICQ, which has a much larger market share (some 150 million users) -- thanks largely to its owner, AOL.

Nevertheless, Hung said Jive may find success betting on the XMPP standard as it competes with SIP, SIMPLE, and other protocols that have yet to shake out in an expanding market.

Market ultimately will determine standard

"Right now, we don't know what standard will win," Hung said. "The market is trying to figure out which is better. It really has to be tested in the market and that has to happen, which makes it a good thing that people are jumping on the open source bandwagon."

Hung said open source is now playing a more prominent role in IM, presence and corporate communication software because there is much talk, but much less in the way of tangible, usable applications.

"That's why open source is becoming popular," Hung said. "People are saying let's develop, let's test, let's see how viable this is."

Hung praised the Jive open sourcing with Jabber and XMPP, referring to a very cohesive development community that has stood strong and together despite being called "the black sheep" by the greater IM community.

"For everything people have thrown at them, they've taken it and said, 'OK, we're going to prove you wrong,'" Hung said.

Despite strong support from the Jabber and XMPP community, Hung said the success of the standard -- and of Jive's open sourcing its Messenger -- are by no means guaranteed, and the major IM players have yet to be convinced.

For his part, Jabber Software Foundation Executive Director Peter Saint-Andre said the open source Jive Messenger may be more significant for system administrators than developers -- at least in the short term -- because Jive Messenger represents the first stable, cross-platform XMPP server available under an open source license. The existing open source servers are optimized for Unix, Saint-Andre explained.

"Organizations on Windows now have a free, easy-to-deploy Jabber/XMPP server, and that expands the market tremendously," Saint-Andre said.

He also said with Jive's main focus on developing customer support and knowledge management systems for Fortune 1,000 companies, it is logical for the company to open source its IM server.

"Their XMPP software is not part of their core competency, so open sourcing that code makes sense for them and is consistent with the economic models that Eric Raymond talks about in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," Saint-Andre said.

Comparing Jive's open sourcing with that of AOL earlier this year, Saint-Andre said the latter was a release of some semi-open, client side APIs for its ICQ IM service, not open source code for a full, real-time messaging server.

ICQ APIs 'cute,' but not powerful enough

"The ICQ APIs enable you to do some cute stuff, but longer term, there's a lot more power in code," Saint-Andre said. "Large corporations especially could care less about eye candy for ICQ, but they sit up and take notice when a solid Java code is available for an IETF-approved messaging and presence technology."

Saint-Andre said developers are already jumping in to "grok" the Messenger code base, adding that once they start contributing, more Jabber/XMPP protocols and support will emerge to provide lacking features, such as server-to-server communications.

"Also, the fact that it's pure Java will encourage involvement from a broader range of developers and increase interest among the Java community," Saint-Andre added. "For example, just this week some folks involved in the Eclipse project have started to talk about integrating XMPP support into that IDE."

Describing XMPP as a streaming XML technology for sending messages and presence in real time, Saint-Andre said the standard is now being used to build and deploy financial trading systems, network management software, distributed gaming platforms, and more.

"So this is about much more than IM, it's about real-time Internet," said Saint-Andre, who added the IETF was likely to publish the Jabber/XMPP RFCs soon.

The Jabber Software Foundation director also referred to companies such as Apple, HP, Oracle, and Sun, which are all actively developing or integrating XMPP-based software into their offerings, and more similar work that is happening quietly.

"I'm sure that many more organizations are working on XMPP projects behind the scenes," he said. "The availability of a fully open source XMPP server written in Java may well spur other companies to open source some of their own XMPP code, further strengthening the momentum behind Jabber/XMPP technologies."

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