Windows IM software ready to Jabber away

Jabber, a company that sells instant-messaging software with open-source roots, has released the first version of its server product geared to work on Windows.

Jabber sells proprietary IM software - both the software application people use for online chat and the server software needed to route the messages over the networks. Until now, its server software worked only on Linux and Solaris, Sun Microsystems' version of Unix.

Jabber moved its server software, called XCP (Extensible Communications Platform) 2.7, to Windows to tap into a larger market, a company representative said. It took some help though; Hewlett-Packard, the number one seller of Intel-based servers, "provided a lot of the development resources" for the new version, the representative said.

Although Jabber's server and client software is proprietary, the company has a tie-in with the open-source programming movement, in which software may be freely viewed, modified and distributed by anyone. For example, the company helps to sponsor an open-source Jabber server software package that uses the same communication standard as Jabber.

Although the commercial software has features not available in the open-source products, the company and the Jabber open-source software group work to ensure they both comply with the communication standard.

More expansion is under way. Jabber expects its server software to work on HP's version of Unix, called HP-UX, early next year, the representative said.

Jabber competes with several others in the growing market for corporate instant-messaging software, including Microsoft, America Online, Sun Microsystems, IBM and a host of smaller companies. Investors in the Denver-based company include Intel and France Telecom.

Stephen Shankland writes for CNET News.com