IM's and IMPS

IM's or Instant Messaging is nothing new to us. We all use it now, as a means of communication. Over the PC's we use MSN Messenger, Yahoo, Google Talk and ICQ, etc. These have been around for sometime. Now they are on our mobiles as well. We can use them almost anywhere anytime. Things have changed a lot. So whats that we lack? One major draw back is that these IM's are not able to communicate with each other (mostly). Recently MSN and Yahoo have made this possible. We still lack one unified messaging solution.

This is where IMPS comes in. IMPS stands for instant messaging and presence system. It is an instant messaging standard initiated by Wireless Village Forum which is primarily supported by Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola. This standardization aims is to bring and to have one single instant messaging system regardless the media and the client. This client is not only designed for PC but also for normal handset. It creates the communication standard between different IM servers and also communication standard between client and IMPS server. We can find the sample of IMPS client in Sony Ericsson handset in “My friends” menu or in “My Presence” menu in Nokia handset. We are free to connect to any IMPS server in the internet.

We do have things like Agile Messenger and GAIM, but what actually happens inside them is they have different clients inside these applications for each of the protocol or IM server.