Jabber Australia

Media Release
20/11/2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jabber server lights up in Australia

Jabber Australia, in partnership with sponsor Ilisys Web Hosting, will today launch what could be Australia's first major instant messaging server. While quite a few hobbyists run small Jabber servers, we believe this is the first attempt to do so on this scale.

Mr Jeremy Lunn, president of Jabber Australia, said that Jabber is already setting a new precedent for instant messaging in Australia.

"Since launching Jabber Australia in May this year, we've seen an astounding interest in the technology", Mr Lunn continued. "We've had over 300 individuals register interest in our services and 90 people register for our online forum".

Back in May there wasn't even a single public Jabber server in Australia; however, Mr Lunn said that "our organisation has brought great awareness to the community and as a result we've seen the addition of at least one new public server in Australia".

The open nature of the technology means that competition won't be an issue between any two servers. Mr Lunn added that "we encourage anyone to run their own server should they desire".

Although the technology does support interfacing with legacy instant message systems, Jabber Australia will not be running these transports on its server. Mr Lunn cited legal issues, where for example it is unclear on the legalities of interfacing with Microsoft's MSN Messenger network, as well as reliability and another case where the US based jabber.org server was blocked by AOL.

Mr Lunn also said "We don't want to give the false impression that we can provide something where such obstacles exist". In spite of this, users of the Jabber Australia server will still be able to access transports on other parts of the Jabber network.

"We believe the launch will be quite an achievement for an organisation of the size and with a zero dollar budget" Mr Lunn concluded. "In addition to this Ilisys have allowed us to use quite a powerful server where sufficient bandwidth is available".

People are able to register for access to the server by signing up to the forum at http://www.jabber.org.au/ and connecting with a standard Jabber client.

Background Information

Jabber is an XML based technology enabling people to send messages over the Internet in real-time, as well as to be updated with the presence information (e.g. online, off-line or away) of their friends, colleagues and other associates.

Unlike legacy systems such as ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger, Jabber is an open protocol that has been formalised into an Internet standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

The legacy nature of the previous IM technologies has created a situation where there are a few islands that can't interconnect with each other. If one of your associates uses MSN Messenger, while you use ICQ, you can't communicate with them. Additionally, if a legacy network becomes unreachable or goes down, you can't even communicate with people in the same building if you use such technology.

While the open nature of Jabber allows individuals and organisations to run their own servers providing connectivity into the world-wide Jabber network. For corporate use this also means that internal communications are kept within the company's network, preventing sensitive information from being revealed to other parties.

It is believed that Jabber already has more users world-wide than ICQ, previously one of the largest instant message providers.