IM Wars Big News: AIM, ICQ to interoperate. AOL says it will allow its next version of AIM to communicate with ICQ, a surprise move that will topple the long-standing barrier between the two popular IM services. [CNET News.com, originally scooped by BetaNews]
AOL claims 150 million screen names for AIM, plus more than 130 million screen names for ICQ. Microsoft said it has 46 million registered users, while Yahoo refuses to disclose its figures. 12.7 million office workers were using instant messaging services, including those from AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and Trillian, according to Nielsen/NetRatings
This move was supposedly prompted by loss of market share to MSN (33% CAGR according to Jupiter) & Yahoo (24%), demands from the messaging intensive financial services industry and the lure of enterprise markets.
The problem is this move is not an adoption of open standards, but a partnership between two market leaders in an attempt to become the defacto standard. There is a tremendous latent demand to innovate on IM being held up by media fiefdoms -- in SMS integation, enterprise functionality and wireless. We'll see how this plays out, but some interoperability is better than nothing.
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