As part of my new Blog Series on The Future of IM I recently had an interview with Sean Egan of GAIM. He had some very interesting things to say about Voice and VoIP Interop with Google Talk. Here's a small piece of the conversation... Me: Hey Sean, what's new in the land of GAIM Sean: So we've got Gaim 2.0.0 coming up soon. Sean: It fixes every problem anyone's ever had with Gaim, ever! Me: whoa, those are some big words Me: what else does it do? Me: new GUI by chance? Sean: Well, not entirely changed, of course. But some hugely major improvements. Me: ok, an example of hugely major would be? Sean: So, maybe the two biggest complaints about the Gaim UI are the stupid "I'm Away" window and the Disconnected/Connecting windows. Those are all gone. Me: ah yes, much better Sean: We slashed a ton of preferences. Me: k, more user friendly... good good Sean: So that dialog is no longer an navigable mess and Gaim just does the Right Thing all the time. Me: sounds good, and what about Voice calling interop? Me: Heard you were working on that Sean: It'll do Google Talk. Me: nice Me: so have you incorporated GIPS into GAIM ? Me: or is the Voice processing in GAIM the same as it was before Sean: There was no voice processing in Gaim before. Me: ahh, ok Me: right Sean: But, we obviously can't use GIPS. Sean: I'm using a free alternative Sean also touched on SIMPLE vs. XMPP and told me that he thought one standard was enough and really did not see the reason for two. I know that some of the SIMPLE advocates out there might disagree but for the near term I think Sean may be on to something. I will be taking some video of the P2P-SIP ADHOC BOF on Friday and I am hoping to corner some of the SIP gurus to talk about SIMPLE and XMPP strategies and how they may differ. Stay tuned for that one!