Hi donphiltrodt!
Good to see you back again!
Searching numerous forums and sites discussing both Jabber and
Trillian reveal no "hack" which would allow you to use Jabber with
Trillian - yet. Apparently, one is under consideration for eventual
inclusion:
"Trillian allows users of multiple services to bring all buddy lists
and clients into one interface. A Jabber plugin may be included in a
future release."
Messaging Frameworks - Trillian
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/d/1136
People do definitely want such support:
"Maybe if Trillian would add support for Jabber the shift of the IM
wars would change and the public would win. Wouldn't that be nice??"
Brad Choate - Can we chat about this?
http://www.bradchoate.com/past/000450.php
Oddly enough, there *is* a way to convert your Trillian list to a
Jabber compatible list (In other words, your Jabber will speak
Trillian) but not the other way around:
Trillian-2-Jabber ICQ Buddies Converter
http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/16718.html
Gossip's Trillian to Jabber Converter
http://planetjumpgate.de/t2j.zip
So what's "going on" with Jabber and Trillian? It really depends on
who you ask. Jabber and Trillian are designed to do the same thing:
allow you to connect with several IM services at once. According to
the Wikipedia, Jabber and Trillian are both attempts to cover all IM
standards at once:
Instant messenger
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messenger
This is borne out by a recent InternetNews article, discussing
Trillian's popularity and dominance in the IM interoperability market:
"Trillian, which competes with Jabber, Odigo and Imici to provide IM
interoperability platforms, has enjoyed heady growth among consumers
recently, according Jupiterresearch. Trillian appeared for the first
time in February 2002 in firm's Internet audience ratings with 344,000
unique users and has grown 77 percent to 610,000 as of April 2002."
Pay-Per-IM is Here - September 12, 2002
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/print.php/1461571
While Jabber can be used as an IM client on its own, it's designed to
function more like (and in competition with) Trillian: as a
consolidator to allow you to chat with your AIM, ICQ and MSN pals all
at once, without opening three separate IM clients to do so. The
trouble is when one or the other does not work with assorted other
clients. Jabber, it would seem, is weak and clunky in comparison to
Trillian.
Greg Keizer, of CNET Software Reviews writes:
"Jabber Instant Messenger (JabberIM) is based on an open source
messaging protocol, which means that it's just one of a whole host of
clients written on the same base code for about every platform under
the sun, from Unix and Linux to Mac and Mozilla. But to you, Jabber is
an IM that promises to combine all your contacts from AOL Instant
Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and ICQ into one list that
will turn your head. Too bad Jabber hasn't improved much since we
first reviewed it nearly a year ago. Trillian is the real
interoperable star; Jabber's still junky. Unless you want to install a
low-cost (or even no-cost) instant-messaging server for your business,
jump past Jabber."
Jabber Instant Messenger 1.10.0.6
http://www.cnet.com/software/0-5566362-8-8481018-7.html
Chris Wage is a Jabber supporter who considers Trillian to be a "band
aid" solution at best, and predicts that Trillian will soon go the way
of the dinosaurs in favor of Jabber's "agent" protocols:
"The impetus behind Jabber is the need for standardization. Around
every system of successful solution is the implementation of a robust
standard for communication. This is why we have standards for nearly
every method of communication on the internet currently -- except for
IM. Why should this be an exception? It shouldn't.
However, the developers of Jabber were not so naive to think that
people would quit various proprietary IM services cold-turkey and
switch to jabber. Naturally, that would never happen. So, Jabber, like
Trillian, supports communication to other IM services as well.
However, it is done server-side, with the use of "Agents". You first
connect to the Jabber server and then bridge over to other IM clients
via the agents."
Why Trillian Sucks - Chris Wage
http://chris.agenteight.com/archives/000108.html
Mr. Wage does acknowledge that Jabber does have problems, though:
"However, all is not well in the land of Jabber development. Honestly,
from where I sit, it's stagnant. The last major release of the server
was over a year ago. The state of the clients for both Windows and
UNIX is mediocre at best. They crash often and they work poorly. You
have to be a very savvy UNIX sysadmin and familiar with XML to even
consider getting a server up and running and to get it talking to
other IM protocols (which is helpful for transition). Quite frankly,
using jabber is a real pain in the butkus, which is unfortunate,
because it's exactly the solution we all need."
Ouch.
Andy Inahtko, of the Chicago Sun-Times, is much gentler in his
criticism, but explains part of the reason that Trillian is more
popular than Jabber - usability:
"Trillian is easy to install and use, it's got a winning
user-interface and is skinnable, and it's fast; but what makes it a
must-download is the fact that it's one app that supports all other IM
schemes worth supporting. It's not alone; Jabber (jabber.org) is an
exciting open-source project but it's not as easy to set up and use."
No fan of instant messaging, but Trillian has its uses
http://www.suntimes.com/output/worktech/cst-fin-andy11.html
From all appearances, Trillian is winning a greater share of the
interoperability market. Jabber supporters acknowledge that the
client suffers from numerous problems, not the least of which is lack
of compatibility with the wildly popular ICQ client, which may be the
downfall of the Jabber client. Even so, the struggle may soon end and
neither Trillian nor Jabber will be necessary, if the Instant
Messaging Standards Board has its way:
"The goal is to pressurize vendors to adopt interoperability
standards," said Navin Rajapakse, assistant vice president at Lehman
Brothers and one of the members of the 10-plus member board. "We want
IM to be like e-mail."
IM Giants Told To Work It Out
http://www.bigblueball.com/news2/article.asp?id=204
It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
I hope this is the information you were looking for! If there's
anything else I can help you with, just ask. I'm always happy to see
our regular customers return.
--Missy
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