In fact, the latest iteration of the Denver-based firm's enterprise IM system, Jabber eXtensible Communications Platform (XCP) version 2.7, introduces an application similar to one popularized in the space by Parlano's MindAlign: persistent, topical chat forums.

Like Chicago-based MindAlign, the new forums in XCP -- which is built on the open-source Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) -- offer another means for enterprise collaboration, based on what amounts to an ongoing chat room that can be open, or limited to specific participants.

Such an offering has proven an extremely popular feature for Parlano, where it proved the basis for its IM and chat system, developed internally at UBS Warburg and based on Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

"Parlano blazed the trail for showing the applicability of a persistent chat forum," said Frank Cardello, Jabber's vice president of business development. "It's something which had nothing to do with IM and presence, per se, but it created a persistent topical forum where you could invite people to that forum, they collaborate and leave, and when they come back, the conversation is still there."

As with Parlano's offering, end-users of Jabber XCP 2.7 can filter messages based on content -- so they can be alerted when new postings are made that mention a selected keyword.

Jabber systems also can log when employees have read certain content in particular forums. That's information that could be potentially important in ensuring compliance with industry regulations, such as those in financial services firms requiring so-called procedural and technical "Chinese Walls" to prohibit groups like analysts and brokers from sharing information.

Indeed, the XCP upgrade introduces special support for "Chinese Walls" throughout its modes of communication. Jabber imports rules governing users' communication restrictions from business' existing e-mail monitoring and "entitlement" systems. Those rules then are imposed both on IM and on forum activity -- so that a user who has viewed content in a particular forum might then be restricted in their future communication about that topic.

"One of the big things that we enabled people to do is capitalize on existing entitlement systems ... and apply those same business rules to IM communications," Cardello said.

Unlike some other IM systems that offer "Chinese Walls," XCP doesn't require separate deployment within each group of users.

The Jabber XCP upgrade also adds new features that ease the syndication of users' presence and availability to other enterprise applications -- a growing demand in enterprises, as businesses seek to add user availability awareness to apps like Web portals, CRM systems and alert routing. Specifically, version 2.7 now can update availability information in real-time to a database, which in turn can be queried by enterprise applications -- providing for improved responsiveness and flexibility.

"You might grab [presence data] from this store, rather than just keeping on hitting the IM server," Cardello said. "Your presence is copied to this database, so people can consume it more readily."

He added that the feature had been introduced at the behest of a financial services client.

The upgrade also offers new capabilities for administrative broadcast messaging, raw data exporting to Oracle databases -- which gives customers additional flexibility for tying into logging, auditing, or archiving systems -- and its clients now enable users to e-mail transcripts of an IM conversation to a third party.

Administrators also can set the server to "lock" employees' desktops to use specific client or clients, which can force users to upgrade to a new version of client, or use only "approved" IM applications.

The platform is available currently on Linux and Solaris. A Windows version is in development jointly with HP, and is expected soon. Initial customers of the 2.7 product suite include ISP Earthlink, telecom giant France Telecom and investment banking powerhouse Lehman Brothers.

Christopher Saunders is managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.com.