IM interoperability in sight?

Interoperability has long been a major stumbling block on the road to wireless instant messaging (IM). This week, IM got one step closer to moving past that hurdle.

Ericsson (www.ericsson.com), Motorola (www.motorola.com) and Nokia (www.nokia.com), founders of the Wireless Village (www.wireless-village.org) initiative, this week announced the successful demonstration of the world’s first interoperable wireless IM and presence services.

The demonstration, conducted in Kista, Sweden, connected three different wireless phones with two different wireless IM and presence servers, one located in Sweden and the other in the United States.

The wireless terminals successfully completed some of the basic features of the Wireless Village client-server protocol. In particular, these features allowed different wireless phones to authenticate to a remote wireless IMPS server, exchange presence information (e.g., availability and location characteristics), as well as send and receive instant messages.

This is an important step toward the Wireless Village’s goal of delivering a universal specification that will allow consumers to exchange messages across all devices and networks.

The internal demonstration is the result of an iterative process used by the Wireless Village initiative’s technical team in defining its specifications. That process is an iteration of steps involving specification, prototype coding and demonstration. This process permits more rapid confirmation of the technical direction.

Additional internal demonstrations are planned throughout the year, leading up to the publication of the specifications.

“This successful demonstration shows the benefit of defining interoperable specifications,” said Frank Dawson, Nokia representative and Wireless Village initiative chairman. “Operators can anticipate availability of different mobile devices that work with a choice of software servers, thus making the mobile Internet a more seamless experience for consumers.”

The initiative intends to deliver an architectural specification, protocol specifications, as well as test specifications and tools for wireless IMPS. The initiative will also define procedures and tools for testing conformance and interoperability of wireless IM and presence services.

“The success of this important demonstration moves the industry even closer to an interoperable instant messaging service that operators and their customers should find irresistible,” said Bob Molnar, Motorola corporate vice president.

In other IM news, TeleCommunication Systems (www.telecomsys.com), a provider of wireless location and messaging software, and Bantu (www.Bantu.com), which markets secure, business-grade IM and presence solutions, have introduced enhanced IM for wireless carriers.

The solution includes an integrated wireless chat and IM application. The integration of the companies’ products will give users a single solution that combines such major messaging technologies as Microsoft Network and AOL Instant Messaging. Subscribers will be able to participate in chat sessions with multiple subscribers or in one-to-one IM sessions from their wireless phones, 2-way pagers and desktops. The service will be available to users with SMS- or WAP-enabled phones.