If you use instant messaging at work, an announcement from IBM may be the best news you'll hear all day.  In a press released issued yesterday, IBM announced that it was joining the growing ranks of companies to embrace open IM standards by supporting XMPP protocols with its Lotus Sametime product.

According to the IBM press release, Google Talk, Jabber, and AIM already support the XMPP standard with Yahoo! Messenger joining the mix in the coming weeks.

The new standards support makes talking to users of the different services seamless.  Instant message services that support XMPP can chat with one another despite the fact that they're on different networks.  Previously, if you were on one service and a friend or colleague was on another service, communication between the two competing services was next to impossible.

Google picked up the story as well and seems excited about the newest member of the XMPP family.  As the Google Blog points out, other organizations, like universities, are also using the XMPP standard.

This should make online communication even easier, which is a good thing.  Just don't get caught chatting at work when you should be, ya know… working.