Last night while the world awoke to the sight of Google Talk I happened upon JWChat, a simple but effective web-based Jabber client. Since I was setting up Jabber in Adium to connect to Google's service, I wondered if JWChat could do the same. Unfortunately, without implementing TLS at the protocol level (not recommended), the developer of JWChat doesn't think it's going to happen. To quote Steve, "So it would be up to Google to add such an interface or to the third-party software to handle this transparently for the client (none of those I know do this atm)." Here's hoping.

Still, JWChat is a pretty cool example of yet another nifty Ajax app. It's open source, and I think ideally suited to corporate LAN's. Since there's no software to install (OK, some of those stick-in-the-mud's might want to finally put Firefox on their boxen) there isn't the usual overhead and headache associated with supporting all manner of wacky clients. Or you could give in and use Google Talk anyway...