External coordination and collaboration must be more agile and provide more privacy and freedom. To that end, Rocket.Chat, the leading open-source communication platform, has announced it is building its new federation capabilities on the matrix protocol to allow its users to communicate with users on other platforms. 

Federation is how the standard email protocol (SMTP) enables users of different email service providers to communicate seamlessly. The Rocket.Chat adoption of Matrix makes it simple for organizations to easily connect with external parties, whether they’re using Rocket.Chat or any

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other Matrix compatible platform. This initiative is another step forward on Rocket.Chat’s journey to let every conversation flow without compromise and enable full interoperability with its ecosystem. 

It also furthers Rocket.Chat’s mission to enable effortless communication and collaboration across platforms, empowering individuals and organizations to connect on their terms and fluently share information. By working with decentralized protocol providers such as Matrix and delivering production-quality Matrix federation, Rocket.Chat eliminates the problem of fragmented communications and concerns of compromised data privacy. 

“As the world has become more global and linked, data privacy issues have become more complex,” said Gabriel Engel, CEO of Rocket.Chat. “Setting standards for data privacy is more important than ever for businesses to protect sensitive customer and employee information, trade secrets, and intellectual property wherever it is stored or shared. Increasing interoperability in the Rocket ecosystem is a significant factor in driving us to help all types of organizations stay in charge of their data and maintain data sovereignty.” 

The importance of openness and data control in inter-company collaboration is growing. The European Union’s recent Digital Markets Act to limit the market power of large online chat and messaging platforms is evidence of this need. 

Demand rises for interoperability between systems 

For personal communications with family, friends and businesses, most people use apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, while platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams are in use at work.

These services are centralized and owned by mega-corporations, and feature a lack of interoperability and the ability for cross-platform messaging. We can only communicate with each other on a specific platform if we use that particular app. For example, it is not possible to send a WhatsApp message to Facebook Messenger in the same way you would send an email from Gmail to Outlook. 

Given the success of team collaboration services for internal teamwork, there has been rising demand among businesses and their teams to enable rich collaboration with external members across different companies, such as partners, vendors, and customers. 

Popular team collaboration services providers have delivered various capabilities and integrations for inter-company communication to meet those requests. However, due to the absence of native interoperability, these are still limited to keep users within the single platform.

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Modern communications need the ability to exchange data between apps, databases, and other systems. People in all types of industries should be thinking more about interoperability – 

• Ensuring quick, secure, and safe ways for different businesses, teams, partners, vendors or customers to connect and collaborate. 
• Allowing employees to choose which team collaboration service they want to use increases employee satisfaction and efficiency. 
• Creating seamless workflows between technologies to avoid vendor lock-in. 
• Providing a more holistic view of all information and increase in productivity. ● Improving data protection, particularly in highly regulated industries.