Jabber.com hires new tech chief

Jabber.com, which develops instant messaging software, has appointed former CollabNet executive James Barry as its chief technology officer. As CTO, Barry will be responsible for addressing standards, competitive positioning, open source initiatives, industry relations and other issues. Barry was formerly vice president of strategic initiatives at CollabNet and has held several management positions at IBM. He has long been a member of Jabber's advisory board. The company, which bases its product on work from the open-source group Jabber.org, recently began to let software developers download a version of its instant messaging software for free.