DENVER and LONDON -- Jabber, Inc. today announced that BT Group plc has selected the Jabber Extensible Communications Platform™ (Jabber XCP™) to provide instant messaging (IM) for their 21st Century Network (21CN) program. The 21CN program, BT Group’s ongoing network transformation project, will replace the United Kingdom’s incumbent Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) with an Internet Protocol (IP) system while facilitating additional services such as on-demand interactive television, mobile television, and mobile radio. As part of the agreement, Jabber will license software to BT for consumer, government, and enterprise users worldwide. In addition, the engagement between BT and Jabber includes consulting and development services which will fully integrate the Jabber XCP platform into BT’s common capabilities network.

“We are delighted to be working with Jabber to develop our instant messaging capability which we will use across many of our different services in the future,” said Dave Axam, general manager future voice services at BT.

Integrating Jabber XCP into a converged network enables BT to extend base messaging across applications and services while meeting their 21CN program objectives. The services built upon the Jabber XCP platform will provide BT customers with a centralized view of customizable and intelligent message routing, one-to-one IM, group chat, offline messages, message history, file transfer, and interoperability with other messaging systems such as Yahoo!®, MSN®, Google™, and AOL®. By offering these capabilities, BT will be able to build a cohesive user community with aggregated points of communication across multiple channels including mobile devices, televisions, softphones, gaming consoles, and PCs. Additional BT applications of Jabber XCP include competitive platforms for hosted and collaborative solutions that transform consumer and enterprise offerings into advanced communications tools with services such as IM, video, and voice.

“BT21CN is an ideal use case of Jabber XCP serving as the core real-time messaging architecture for virtually any application,” said Paul Guerin, chief executive officer of Jabber. “By integrating IM common capabilities into its network, 21CN becomes a platform for converged service offerings, with applicability that extends beyond the consumer space. The synergy between our product roadmap and BT’s short- and long-term goals facilitated discussions that led to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

Jabber Inc.