Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to envision the benefits of applying the Instant Messaging (IM) paradigm in pervasive computing environments. With IM in such an environment, all smart entities, human or not, can interact using IM as the unified interface. To realize this vision, the design of a Smart Instant Messaging (SIM) system is proposed, which features context‐aware presence management, user‐centric resource configuration, and adaptive grouping.Design/methodology/approach– Three prototype versions of a client have been implemented and their performance in terms of memory usage and response time evaluated.Findings– The SIM system was found to transcend current IM products by having new features including context‐aware presence management, user‐centric resource configuration, and adaptive grouping support.Originality/value– The system described here extends the Jabber‐based IM framework and relies on an ontology‐based supporting middleware to handle the chore of retrieving and interpreting contextual information.
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