Standardizing the core concepts + the extensibility of XMPP was absolutely necessary to achieve the necessary protocol agility I think. Requirements have change

Standardizing the core concepts + the extensibility of XMPP was absolutely necessary to achieve the necessary protocol agility I think. Requirements have changed a LOT since 1998 and we still have innovative and modern XMPP clients, maintained by the community, mostly in their free time without any need for millions of dollars of VC money. Without standardization, there can be no interoperability and without agility any IM protocol will soon be outdated. I think XMPP is a success story because it realized this, but it's a success story that isn't told very often.