Earlier this week we had a coffee with GoogleTalk product manager, Mike Jazayeri. Mike mentioned that this announcement (Google Opens IM and Talk) was going to hit the next day. Google has allowed anyone using XMPP to send traffic openly to and from their cloud. This is in sharp contrast with the federation agreement announced between Yahoo and Microsoft. Mike later wrote about this announcement on the Google Blog, and one of the supporters of this announcement, Michael Robertson, also blogged it.
Google is probably going to get lots of pats on the back for this. And, deservedly so. What they’re doing is breaking down the walls between the walled gardens of todays providers. But it’s also smart business strategy. When you’re coming from behind (far behind, in Google’s case), one of the best strategies to thwart a competitor with a proprietary technology is to cloak yourself in open technology. And that’s what they’re doing. They’re not being evil, but they’re also note operating out of pure unselfish interest.
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.
