Jabber Inc. announced today that the IETF has approved the XMPP protocol as a standard for instant messaging and presence. The standardization effort has been led by the Jabber Software Foundation [JSF], an independent group, who have been working with the IETF for the past year to bring the standard forward.

From the press release:

"The JSF has been working with the IETF for just over a year to add security and internationalization features to the core Jabber protocols, which the JSF has contributed to the IETF under the name XMPP. XMPP now joins other IETF-approved protocols such as HTTP (the World Wide Web) and SMTP (email), thus positioning it as an Internet standard for instant messaging (IM) and presence. In addition, the Jabber community continues to develop specialized application protocols on top of XMPP.

XMPP is a real-time communications protocol, which allows people, devices and applications to instantly communicate and exchange streaming XML data, based upon dynamic presence and availability information. Network Computing Magazine recently recognized XMPP as a "2004 Standard to Watch."

"The contributions from the thousands of individuals involved in the Jabber community made this process look simple," said Peter Saint Andre, executive director of the Jabber Software Foundation. "IETF approval is crucial because it demonstrates to the Internet community that XMPP is a proven technology, an open and interoperable standard, and one that is being rapidly adopted."

"IETF approval is a cause for celebration throughout the Jabber community," said Tony Bamonti, acting-president of Jabber, Inc. "Jabber, Inc. wants to congratulate the Jabber Software Foundation for scoring a major victory for the cause of interoperable instant messaging." "