provides server-to-server interoperability between disparate communities with conversion services for different protocols, presence information awareness, and instant messaging. HCL Sametime Gateway connects HCL Sametime instant messaging cooperate communities with external communities, including external HCL Sametime, and public instant messaging communities, such as: AOL, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Google Talk, and XMPP. HCL Sametime Gateway replaces the Sametime Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Gateway from earlier releases of HCL Sametime. The HCL Sametime Gateway platform is based on IBM WebSphere Application Server, which provides failover, clustering, and scalability for the HCL Sametime Gateway deployment. The product is shipped with the following connectors: Virtual Places, SIP, and XMPP. More protocol connectors may be added. Platform support, APIs and application integration Because HCL Sametime is middleware, it supports application and business process integration. When within the context of real-time communications, this is often referred to as Communications Enabled Business Processes. Sametime integrates in either of two ways: by surfacing the application into an HCL Sametime plug-in by surfacing HCL Sametime capabilities into the target application Some examples of integration between HCL Sametime and applications include: HCL's products including HCL Notes, HCL Domino applications, HCL Connections, HCL Quickr Microsoft office-productivity software including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Sharepoint portal applications, including portals built with IBM WebSphere Portal web applications packaged enterprise applications embedded and client–server telephony applications HCL Sametime Connect, the client component of HCL Sametime, is built on the Eclipse platform, allowing developers familiar with the framework to easily write plug-ins for HCL Sametime. It uses a proprietary protocol named Virtual Places, but also offers support for standard protocols, including Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), SIMPLE, T.120, XMPP, and H.323. HCL Sametime Connect can run under Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS. Also available are a zero-download web client for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari; mobile clients are also supported for Apple iPhone, Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile, RIM Blackberry, and Symbian. The HCL Sametime server runs on Microsoft Windows, IBM AIX, IBM i (formerly i5/OS), Linux and Solaris. Sametime can also be accessed using the free software Adium, Gaim, Pidgin, and Kopete clients. History HCL Sametime became an IBM product in 1998 as the synthesis of technologies IBM acquired from two companies: an American company called Databeam provided the architecture to host T.120 dataconferencing (for web messaging) and H.323 Multi-Media Conferencing Ubique, an Israeli company whose Virtual Places Chat software technology (also known