Messages on Server - Time to Sunset?

We have been a Mac OS X Server user for a long time and are currently on the latest build. All is going well. We have started to hand out iPads to some of the non-office staff, such as warehouse managers. It is making us re-think whether it still makes sense to continue to use the Mac Server's Messages/Jabber service. Should we switch to regular iMessage and have everyone use their Apple ID?

A few additional thoughts:

* Enhancements to the Mac Server Messages / Jabber service have been non-existent over the years. Making a group chat, compared to modern alternatives, is a complete nightmare, let alone sending an attachment or picture to a group through jabber (if I recall correctly).

* I believe Mac OS X Server Messages / Jabber is not natively supported in iOS.

* Many of us use Jabber for buddy lists which shows a person's status - iMessage (i.e Apple ID) does not seem to have a buddy list / show status feature.

Jabber just seems really dated now. Please help me out - what are your thoughts on jabber? Would you continue using jabber or is it time to move to iMessage and turn this service off on our Mac Server?

Bob