MSN, Yahoo to Link IM Systems

Users of MSN Messenger, Microsoft’s consumer instant messaging (IM) client, will be able to communicate with users of Yahoo Messenger beginning in spring 2006. Until now, these IM networks, along with AOL, have avoided interoperability for business reasons, but MSN and Yahoo believe that their agreement—a feature long requested by customers—will grow the overall consumer IM market, help them compete more effectively against market leader AOL, and stave off challenges by newcomers such as Google and Skype. However, one key feature will be missing from the interoperability agreement at launch: voice communication.

User Lock-In Strategy

Today, each of the three major public IM networks—the .NET Messenger network used by MSN, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and Yahoo Messenger—uses proprietary protocols, and each company’s IM client works only with its network. However, the main barrier to IM interoperability has not been technological—Trillian and other third parties have reverse-engineered all three IM protocols and released clients that work with all three networks. Rather, the lack of interoperability has been dictated by business concerns.