The Advanced Message Queuing Protocol, or AMQP, will interoperate with existing specifications such as Java Message Service (JMS), SOAP, WS-Security, WS-Transactions and others, executives from firms backing the AMQP Working Group said during a conference call.

AMQP backers downplayed competition with existing messaging formats, including IBM's dominant WebSphere MQ technology. John O'Hara, vice president at JPMorgan, said that because AMQP defines a model for routing and storing queue-based messages -- and offers a network wire-level protocol -- it can complement any messaging format, including proprietary ones, that can use an alternative transport method.

"There's a lot of awkwardness today because there isn't an open transport protocol," O'Hara said. AMQP "makes it possible to plug that gap."

JPMorgan has already rolled out an AMQP-based trading system for 800 users on five continents. The system involves three data centers that use Windows, Linux and Solaris hardware and applications written in Java, C# and C++, according to O'Hara.

"This is an aggressive test bed," he said. "It's not perfect. We're not arrogant enough to say we've got a complete solution yet. But we sent the heavy cavalry across the bridge first to see if it would break, and it didn't break."