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America Online has named its first instant messaging system interoperability test partner: IBM subsidiary Lotus. The two companies are testing communication between their messaging systems, AOL Instant Messenger and Lotus Sametime.

Such a development agreement was a condition of federal regulatory approval for AOL's merger early this year with Time Warner. The Federal Communications Commission is requiring AOL to open its IM applications to allow communication with rival messaging systems.

AOL assured the FCC in late July that its progress toward messaging interoperability is on track, and said it expected to begin testing with other systems within the next few months. AOL is supposed to demonstrate progress toward allowing its AIM and ICQ applications to communicate with other instant message systems, including Yahoo Messenger and Microsoft's MSN Messenger.

AIM claims more than 100 million registered users. IBM and Lotus do not break out user numbers relating to Sametime installations, according to a spokesperson.

However, IBM claims some 80 million users of Lotus Notes, a sophisticated, server-based e-mail and communications program. Sametime is designed to work with Lotus Notes. Like Notes, Sametime is aimed primarily at corporate customers.

Several Tests

IBM recently announced plans to provide Sametime on wireless platforms. Sametime Everyplace 1.0, first shown at a developers' conference in June, was scheduled to become available this summer. IBM says it will run on mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and Pocket PCs, as well as PCs.

IBM and AOL have not set a time frame for interoperability testing to be completed, says Kathy McKiernan, an AOL spokesperson. She wouldn't comment directly on whether AOL plans to announce tests with other IM systems.

"This is our first trial, and this is where the focus of our energy is," she says.

Other Efforts

AOL and Lotus say the interoperability tests will evaluate how AIM and Sametime communicate with each other on a server-to-server basis. The communications will rely on the Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions, one of the IM standards currently being considered by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

The IETF is an international organization that oversees Internet technical standards. It is separately considering instant messaging standards.

The working group is evaluating protocols and looking into ways to make different IM systems work together, rather than selecting one standard for all IM services to use. Also under consideration are Presence and Instant Messaging, which is a new IM protocol that works over TCP/IP, and Instant Messaging Exchange Protocol, which is based on Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol. IETF officials say all three protocols are compatible with AIM.

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