AIM Standards (Not IM Standards)
After reading the case write-up I was struck with one focused reaction, I was surprised. In about 12 pages of information and 4 pages of pictures, I learned very little and little in terms of story happened. Some smart people created IM, then a few larger companies got in the market, and then nothing happened. Here we are 7ish years later and the IM world hasn't changed significantly, so what are we analyzing here?
Fine, then let's discuss standards. Standards have been an after-thought for those with deep wallets looking to continue padding their pockets. Trillian has done a good enough job to ensure no matter which major network the user is introduced to, they can be talking to anyone else. Once again proving some places are better owned by the free and open developers....or at least not big business run. The IM world was stormed by a smart set of individuals and ever since those same people have been quietly doing their best to keep it where it should be. Thanks to the advent of Jabber the major companies should be able to save themselves a great deal of effort and focus on making their products better, but instead they're ignoring them and working on big ads. Big companies aren't evil, they just aren't creative like the many small companies that they keep having to buy out to stay on top are.