Is presence a standard?
Is presence a standard?

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Presence has been closely associated with the SIP/SIMPLE standardization process in the IETF SIP working group. This activity has grown out of the use of presence in instant messaging and is a very beneficial attempt to standardize the communication of presence in the industry. The existence of this standardization activity signals a significant change in the role of communications systems—we've now moved beyond calls to the dissemination of state information to help businesses run efficiently.

However, it is also true that for presence neither SIP/SIMPLE nor any other standard can be the end of the story. For the foreseeable future, there will continue to be many sources of important but non-standardized state information in the world. So for presence, as with many other communications features, systems need to focus on applications and should support standards and any other means to facilitate the implementations.

This was first published in October 2005