Opening Up IM Not Important Any More

Stupidity

from the for-the-shortsighted,-perhaps... dept

There used to be all this talk (from companies like Microsoft and Yahoo, even) about how we need an open instant messaging standard to allow various IM products to talk to each other (which really meant allowing Yahoo and Microsoft’s IM to talk to market leading AOL’s IM products). Now, however, it appears that Microsoft and Yahoo have quieted down and there’s no real push to open up IM anymore. It seems that both Yahoo and Microsoft have signed up enough customers that they’re now seeing the value of keeping things closed. What this completely ignores is that it completely pisses off most users, who need to have multiple IM products all running at once. The article quotes one user who doesn’t mind multiple clients as if that’s conclusive evidence that no one wants an open IM standard at all. I’d say the number of people using products like Trillian and Fire suggests otherwise…