With MSN and Yahoo! partnering on IM, two closed systems now make one very large, but still closed, system of 275 million users.
The main issue with IM has been 1) the lack of interoperability between IM providers and 2) how closed these systems have been…
These restrictions have totally worked against the development community and innovation in general — this is why I gave up integrating IM into my apps. So what really would be great, what really would be great news is 1) for all major IM solutions (AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber-based, etc.) to interoperate, and 2) to open the IM networks and related services. That is what will promote innovation and cool products that integrate with instant messaging – from desktop to mobile.
ceo