Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone OS, BlackBerry, Android, and the Web, created by Cerulean Studios. It can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Bonjour, XMPP, and Skype networks; as well as Social Networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace; and email services, such as POP3, IMAP, Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail.
Initially released July 1, 2000, as a freeware IRC client, the first commercial version (Trillian Pro 1.0) was published on September 10, 2002. The program was named after Trillian, a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The old version of the official web site even used to have a shrine to Douglas Adams on its front page.
The newest major release of Trillian for Windows, called Trillian Astra (4.0), was launched on August 14, 2009, along with its own Astra network. Trillian Astra has a free version and also a premium version with extra features. Trillian for iPhone, the first mobile version of the software, was launched on November 18, 2009.
According to the official blog, Trillian clients for iPhone OS (1.2), BlackBerry, Android[1], Mac and the Web are also under development.[2]
Trillian 5 for Windows was announced on July 1, 2010 with the first beta build to be released in the coming weeks.[3]