Hence, AOL's competitors asked for standards. The IETF is most likely to accept an interoperability protocol tentatively called the Common Profile for Presence and Instant Messaging, which allows users to find and chat with users on different systems. The working group will accept comments on the proposal until January 15, says Athanassios Diacakis, chief technology officer at Network Projects and a member of one of the task force's working groups. For example, it tells the server whether an e-mail message contains HTML code or an audio file. Since so many e-mail systems already use SIP, he said, it's the natural choice for an IM standard.
Instant messaging is a kind of gateway drug for other applications.
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