The grumblings in the industry are that SPIM [Instant Messaging SPAM] primarily and SPIT [Internet Telephony SPAM] will cause major headaches for network admins the world over unless something is done ASAP.

The last thing anyone wants, except for those dreaded spammers, is to see the same SPAM issues we have seen in email now show up in IM and Voice and Video over IP. As we move into open standards for IM [SIMPLE, XCAP, MSRP] we will see growth that could easily cripple networks when coupled with SPAM. We need to cut this off at the pass before it get’s out of hand.

IM will eventually replace email, we need to be prepared for SPAM and handle it better than we did email SPAM.

Security needs to be addressed from several levels, not just the enterprise. It’s not enough to use IM Logic, Sybari or Zone Labs. There has to be a system that makes the entire spamming process so difficult or expensive that they are stifled before they start.

There are proposed solutions which will see the light of day soon, hopefully it’s soon enough!

MSRP [Message Session Relay Protocol] draft in the IEFT will certianly change the way we build IM applications and will allow mass adoption of SIMPLE-based IM applications.

Now with MSRP we can make use of multimodal communications in SIMPLE. Up until recently SIMPLE has been quite limited in regards to heavy IM communications use due to the MESSAGE method limitation. Now with MSRP we see this problem solved and we get some new features like IM transfer, conferencing and others much easier implemented and we still maintain the open standard.

Jabber using XMPP [Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol] has clearly led the way in IM using open standards. With the advent of SIMPLE and MSRP relays, that could quickly change. Especailly with the big IM giants [Microsoft hosted this year’s SIMPLEit event] looking to SIMPLE and MSRP to lead the next evolution in IM+Voice+Video.

The next question is how long before we see it? Stay tuned..

BroadSoft customers today had a sneak preview of Xten’s enhanced eyeBeam SIP softphone supporting VoIP, Video, Instant Messaging and Presence based on open standards

SANTA CLARA, CA, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Xten (OTCBB: XNWK – News), a provider of VoIP (Voice over IP) and Video over IP SIP softphones, today announced support for Instant Messaging and Presence using IETF proposed standards including SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions) and XCAP (Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) Configuration Access Protocol) will be publicly available very soon. Xten demonstrated the new IM and Presence features to be offered in eyeBeam and the eyeBeam SDK at BroadSoft Connections Conference in Phoenix yesterday.

“The crowd was very excited to see SIMPLE and Presence with Centralized Buddy Lists in action in an open standards softphone”, commented Erik Lagerway, president and chief operating officer at Xten, “Based on the feedback we have received the eyeBeam VoIP and Video softphone SDK with support for SIMPLE and XCAP will be an attractive alternative to other somewhat proprietary offerings already available and soon to be launched in the market.”

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