The main advantages of gateways, from my perspective, are twofold:
1) Your multiple IM personas are managed server-side, so you connect once from any given location and don't have to re-enter all your accounts everywhere.
2) Gateways can connect to additional services that most clients cannot connect to, such as SMS service or SIP voice/TDD services.
There are additional benefits in the form of reduced spim and more flexibility in what type of interface you have available, but the above are the biggest advantages.
For corporate users, the big advantages are that all IM can be restricted to the corporate server for audit, electronic records, and policy enforcement, but that's not a big deal for individual use.
Kurt Granroth wrote:
> Sure, I have multiple IM accounts for exactly that reason. But pretty
> much every IM client out there can support multiple accounts. Why
> wouldn't you just manage your multiple accounts in the IM app instead of
> routing it through some other service?
>
> I have to be missing something pretty fundamental, here.
>
> Jon M. Hanson wrote:
>> It allows you to keep using an AOL Instant Messenger account, for
>> example, if you still have people on that service that you need to
>> keep in contact with and you already have an account.
>> ---
>> Jon M. Hanson (N7ZVJ)
>> Weblog: http://the-hansons-az.net/wordpress/
>> Homepage: http://the-hansons-az.net/
>> Jabber IM: jon@the-hansons-az.net
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 7, 2009, at 6:43 PM, Kurt Granroth wrote:
>>
>>> Has anybody here used an IM gateway and, if so, what is their purpose?
>>>
>>> I've been playing around with the OpenFire jabber server lately (very
>>> slick, btw) and one of its features is an IM Gateway. It allows you
>>> to
>>> communicate with non-jabber IM servers (like AIM, Messenger, etc)
>>> through this gateway.
>>>
>>> As far as I can tell, though, you still have to register with the
>>> "parent" server. That is, if you want to communicate with an AIM
>>> user,
>>> you'll still need to create an AIM account.
>>>
>>> This is completely separate from jabber federation. I can
>>> communication
>>> with GTalk users just fine via my OpenFire server without having to
>>> register with Google at all.
>>>
>>> For the other services, though... what's the point? If you have to
>>> register anyway, why not just access those services directly?
>>>
>>> Anybody know what I'm missing?
>>> Kurt
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