Google Talk is out. You can read about the details of what it is on Stuart Henshall’s Skype Journal. He has a detailed post describing his first impressions.
To me, the interesting points are:
1) It’s not SIP. It’s based on Jabber, and the Jabber XMPP protocol. What does this mean for SIP?
2) It’s completely open. Any Jabber client can connect into it, which means that the business model that AOL and MSN have used (fund IM with advertising dollars) is not the business model which Google is using initially. So, what is the business model?
A reasonable supposition is that Google is trying to dominate the directory space as effectively as it has dominated search. By linking GMail and Google Talk, they’ve given you more reason than ever to use GMail, and to invite your friends to use GMail.
The folks at Skype are likely having kittens over this. The tight integration with GMail will mean an instant, and large community. The people who really need to worry about this are the ILECs. It is they who control the dominant directory assets today.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Actually SIP signaling is coming..
From http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html
What protocols are used for voice calls?
Google Talk supports a custom XMPP-based signaling protocol and peer-to-peer communication mechanism. We will fully document this protocol. In the near future, we plan to support SIP signaling.
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