TMCnet VoIP Minute Watch Columnist
It seems like Google caused quite a stir in the online chatting world when it announced the open standards-based Google Talk software client yesterday. Since the search giant's new, open standards-based text/voice instant message (IM) software client announcement hit the news wire, yours truly has come across at least two Internet communications companies showing interest in connecting to and being compatible with the Google Talk network.
TMC's VoIP Minute Watch reported on SIPphone Inc. announcing it planned to link its Gizmo Project (a Skype-like VoIP calling/text IM client) to the Google Talk network yesterday; and today, it heard from Akonix, an enterprise IM security company, announcing it will now provide full support for enterprise users of Google Talk.
According to Akonix's news announcement, the company’s products "enable organizations to use public IM services like Google Talk, while enforcing corporate policies, blocking unauthorized use, protecting against security risks, and logging and archiving IM conversations to comply with various corporate, industry and government requirements and regulations."
"Our enterprise customers need a comprehensive solution for enabling secure, compliant and authorized access to IM for their employees," said Francis Costello, chief technology officer at Akonix Systems. "As with AOL, MSN and Yahoo!, Google Talk will be downloaded and installed within corporate environments, raising security and compliance risks for the organization. As the leader in providing security and compliance for all enterprise IM use, supporting Google Talk is a natural fit for our business and something our customers have told us is absolutely required."
The company claims that its event bus and protocol adapter architecture enables customers to apply the exact same policies and controls to Google Talk mandated today for other IM networks and enterprise systems from AOL, Microsoft, IBM and Yahoo!.
Akonix's Google Talk policies and controls include:
- Restricting access to Google Talk to only authorized users in accordance with corporate usage policies
- Integration with corporate directory systems and automatic mapping of Google Talk screen names to network users for policy management
- Automatic protection against IM-borne viruses and worms
- Logging and archiving to capture and centrally store all Google Talk conversations
- Blocking of spam over IM (SPIM) and fraudulent phishing attempts
- Enforcement of ethical walls and other communication restrictions among Google Talk users
- Content filtering to define and apply filters that block messages containing keywords, phrases or patterns
- Compliance workflow for searching and reviewing messages, adding comments, escalating messages and monitoring reviewer performance
- Automated and scheduled IM activity reports with over 35 pre-defined templates
- Customizable user disclaimers to inject notifications into IM messages to alert users of message monitoring and logging
The company's Akonix L7 CM5000, an all-in-one appliance for IM security and compliance for public and enterprise IM systems, allows corporations to "manage access to IM without compromising network or endpoint security. It now also provides complete capability for controlling employee access to Google Talk," noted the announcement. Akonix's support for Google Talk will be available shortly.
SIPphone Inc. officially introduced on Wednesday the Gizmo Project 1.0 net calling software and also announced an agreement to connect to the Google Talk IM network using open standards. The software is currently available for download at the company's Web site and is Macintosh, Microsoft Windows and Linux-compatible.
When SIPphone links its Gizmo Project with Google Talk, users will be able to IM and place voice calls among each other in future versions. "Our goal is to link the entire world into one giant free dialing directory and joining forces with Google is a great step in that direction," said SIPphone CEO Michael Robertson. "Gizmo Project users can now call more than two dozen voice networks and 150,000 University phones using GUPS, which makes us the largest SIP based network in the world."
Google launched the Beta version of Google Talk on Wednesday. The search giant will first be launching the client to be compatible with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The company expects to make the client Mac-compatible in the near future. According an Associated Press (AP) report released Wednesday, Google Talk will require users to "have an account with the company's free Gmail e-mail system."
Google Talk's voice chatting feature does not include PC to PSTN calling and it "requires that both the caller and recipient have speakers and a microphone hooked up to their computers. It does not currently offer an adapter to which regular phones can be connected," AP reported.
Don't forget to check out TMCnet's own Tom Keating's Google Talk review! In his blog, Keating shows live conversations taken place this morning, in addition to screenshots. During his first call, Keating found the sound quality to be excellent and latency to be minimal.
Keating described his experience: "I actually made a PSTN call and a Google Talk call and held the microphone up to the PSTN phone I was using. On the remote end I had the person turn his external speakers up so I could hear when my voice came through. I did some simple counting and almost immediately I could hear my voice come out of the remote speakers, into the remote callers phone handset, over the PSTN, and then to my phone handset. Pretty amazing how minimal the latency was considering it was round trip."
Keating found, however that users are not able to "right-click" contacts to immediately initiate a Google Talk voice call. The editor found annoying that he had to actually "start a chat session first" in order to make a call.
For more on his review, please check out his blog.
Akonix
Google
SIPphone, Inc.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit:
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