The Jason Salas Experience

A problem that I've been mentally chewing on since noting it a couple of days ago is an inability to federate an Openfire server with RIM's closed-source IM network.  This would allow my desktop Spark client to interop with BlackBerry Messenger.  I figured I'm not the first guy to wonder about such, and scant forum posts prove that a more widespread curiosity exists.

Again, a mini-ecosystem of ISV apps exists that allows the smartphones to connect to other IM networks and communicate with users on those systems - but not so for situations where a remote network tries to initiate a conversation from the outside-in.  No Openfire plugins exist to do such a connection, which really surprised me, given the volume of other supported federated networks.

 

The blockage, I assume, is due to either some technological barrier that prohibited an XMPP gateway from translating messages/presence/rosters between the two systems, or merely (and more annoyingly) a political stance by RIM to not allow their system to be opened up from the outside.

So while discussing the matter with Peter Saint-Andre this morning, it hit me: with the nature of BlackBerries being carrier-driven devices, might the roadblock have something to do with the fact that the BB's proprietary login credentials aren't permitted to be marshaled across the wire via XMPP or HTTP?

Ay, there's the rub.  So is this a protocol issue for which a workaround exists?  Is it possible to write a custom transport to handle this type of traffic?  Is this yet another case of RIM mandating an installation of its costly BlackBerry Enterprise Server to do anything outside of basic usage?  Am I on the right track?

I've asked the experts behind Spark...anyone out there got any other ideas?

**UPDATE**

I'm also now wondering if it might have something to do with BES itself...would there be a restriction in accessing contacts, if such is done via LDAP?  Further, would there be volume limitations if all contacts are centrally stored on an enterprise-caliber server?  Peter said on FLOSS Weekly that his roster - some 2,100 members strong - is the stress test to see if clients can handle load.

**UPDATE 2**

Well, I guess this does it.