Is Google becoming the dreaded Skynet?

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and Jabber, Inc. announced a partnership to help solve the information sharing issues inherent in cross-agency collaboration. Combined with General Dynamics' mission awareness capabilities and Jabber, Inc.'s XMPP-based extensible presence architecture, the two companies will work to deliver solutions that solve the interoperability issues associated with information sharing for government customers; from first responders to military commanders to intelligence officers.

Utilzing XMPP? That's just great - this just confirms my fears that Google, which also supports XMPP (via GoogleTalk) will soon be able to take over the Defense Department, CIA, and NSA once Google evolves to becomes the dreaded Skynet depicted on the Terminator movies. (Not only that, but I just learned Google may be adding "search" to their voice Google Talk application)

Anyway, here's the news...

According to Baghdad veteran, national security information specialist and Jabber, Inc. Sr. VP Michael Helfrich:

"Since 9/11, the information technology mission of the U.S. national security infrastructure has been to facilitate horizontal communication across stovepipe architectures and ensure decision makers receive accurate information at the moment of most value."

To achieve this end, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and Jabber, Inc. announced today a partnership to help solve the information sharing issues inherent in cross-agency collaboration. Combined with General Dynamics' mission awareness capabilities and Jabber, Inc.'s XMPP-based extensible presence architecture, the two companies will work to deliver solutions that solve the interoperability issues associated with information sharing for government customers – from first responders to military commanders to intelligence officers.

A full press release follows. To arrange an interview with spokespeople from both companies, please contact me at 303-291-0522 x207 or 720-987-9537. I can also be reached via email at ulieberman@jabber.com.

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GENERAL DYNAMICS AND JABBER, INC. PARTNER TO FACILITATE INFORMATION SHARING AND SYSTEMS INTEROPERABILITY

ARLINGTON, Va. & DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 20, 2005--General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems and Jabber, Inc. have created a partnership to provide Jabber, Inc.'s product line of secure and scalable enterprise messaging and presence solutions to customers in the defense, intelligence and homeland security markets. Combined with General Dynamics' mission awareness capabilities and established relationships with other commercial collaboration tools, including InfoWorkSpace and Groove Virtual Office, General Dynamics seeks to solve the interoperability issues associated with information sharing for government customers -- from first responders to military commanders to intelligence officers.

The Jabber, Inc. product line includes the Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP). Jabber XCP is a programmable Extensible Markup Language (XML) messaging framework that leverages presence -- the availability, status and role of any person, application or device -- to weave applications, networks, devices, multi-media and protocols together into a real-time information sharing environment, where context is dynamically added to new and continuous data streams. The platform uses the open-source Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) -- approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard for instant messaging and presence technologies, and ratified as a standard within the U.S. Department of Defense.

"XMPP has gained significant traction within the federal government as an interoperable, extensible, real-time routing protocol for the movement of mission-critical information, such as instant messages, presence and structured data between previously non-interoperable systems," said Mark Kusiak, Director, Homeland Security and Information Assurance, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems.

"Jabber XCP is a proven, carrier-grade, multi-protocol router -- for efficiently transporting messages based on presence at wire speed -- that can scale up and down to meet the varied and evolving needs of our government customers. The addition of Jabber, Inc. to our current offerings of InfoWorkSpace (IWS), Groove, Integrated Incident Management System (IIMS), and Intelligent Information Integration Broker (I3B ) is significant and will allow General Dynamics to provide interoperability among these and other leading commercial collaboration products," Kusiak said.

"Since 9/11, the information technology mission of the U.S. national security infrastructure has been to facilitate horizontal communication across stovepipe architectures and ensure decision makers receive accurate information at the moment of most value," said Michael Helfrich, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing at Jabber, Inc. "General Dynamics has a tremendous history in providing collaborative capabilities to its government customers and has repeatedly proven that it has the vision and scale to deliver upon this mission. Combined with Jabber, Inc.'s advanced presence and messaging tools -- which snap into legacy architectures -- this partnership will greatly speed attainment of this goal for our federal government customers."

Jabber, Inc. is a leading provider of real-time presence and messaging solutions. More than seven million users, representing hundreds of organizations worldwide, have licensed the Jabber XCP commercial server to underpin a wide variety of real-time, presence-powered applications, including enterprise instant messaging and chat, transactional financial trading systems, battlefield awareness systems and more. Jabber, Inc., a 2004 eWeek Excellence Award Finalist, and Network Computing magazine "2004 Company to Watch," counts Lehman Brothers, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, FedEx, BellSouth, McKesson, EDS, Arcelor, France Telecom, CapWIN and Portugal Telecom amongst its customers. Please see www.jabber.com or send an email to info@jabber.com for more information

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems is a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD). Headquartered in Arlington, Va., it is a leading provider of transformational mission solutions in command, control, communications, and computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Customers include those in the defense, intelligence, homeland security and homeland defense communities. More information is available on the Internet at www.gd-ais.com.

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 70,800 people worldwide and had 2004 revenue of $19.2 billion. The company is a market leader in mission-critical information systems and technologies; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and business aviation. More information about the company can be found at www.generaldynamics.com.