A while back, I asked if anyone knew Sametime Gateway. I certainly appreciated the responses, however restarting the Gateway and the Nodes was not my idea of a good time.
Even if we were able to script it.
What did opening a PMR with IBM get us?
After much time and effort, on both IBM’s and our part, it came down to a problem between, not the Gateway and Google Talk, as I expected, but a communication issue between the Sametime Gateway and the Sametime XMPP server. That’s right kids, the IBM pieces weren’t able to communicate with each other, which resulted in the installation of an IBM patch. A patch that was unknown to the IBM techs that were trying valiantly to resolve this issue.
Wonderful.
However, this episode did bring me to a harsh conclusion – there are so many moving parts in these new tools from IBM, so many different areas within IBM involved in the development and support of these tools, that there is no one person or group that is responsible for, in this case, the Instant Messaging stack. You need a WebSphere person. You need a Sametime person. You may even need a person from Israel who was there on “Day One” when someone decided that moving Sametime to WebSphere was a good idea, someone with A LOT of institutional knowledge. Then, at the end, someone, somewhere, discovers a patch. A patch that was unknown to the tech, until he happened to ask the right person,the right question.
Apparently, important information is missing from a wiki somewhere.
While I certainly see the usefulness of having something like Sametime Gateway installed and functioning, it’s true value would be delivered by allowing more than just two external communities to communicate with it; AOL Clearinghouse and Google Talk. Yes, that’s right, this is probably the only Instant Messaging gateway on the planet that talks to only two communities. I see no indication from anyone that Yahoo will soon be added back into the mix. Nor do I see any other instant messaging community lining up to be included to Sametime Gateway.
Where is the value you are delivering with this product, IBM?
Gregg Eldred 
You missed general additional XMPP communities (none GTalk, jabber for example). Lync and other companies running Sametime Gregg.
Yahoo is distancing itself from everyone, It was just announced by Microsoft that the Lync connection to Yahoo is also being dropped.
As for your comments about it being a pain to support,overly complex etc, You’ll get rebuttal from me..
I hear your pain brotha! We’ve been trying to setup Connections 4.0, and integrate it with Sametime (Proxy), Mail, even QuickR! I think we’re finally there, BUT wow, was that a gong show! Kudos though to the IBM support reps as they were relentless in finding solutions to any of our issues, but even they have commented just how bad and confusing it is to support their own products. It’s a Sametime problem, no it’s a Websphere issue, no it’s now a Connections issue, wait lets go back to a Sametime issue, and around we go. Way, Way, Way too many moving parts, it shouldn’t have to be this complicated!