Kougar
07-13-2006, 06:54 PM
Microsoft and Yahoo say they now have the world's biggest IM community
Today, both Microsoft and Yahoo have made their respective instant messaging applications compatible with each other. (http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=203712&www.dailytech.com) In a joint program, Windows Live Messenger users will be able to communicate with users of Yahoo Messenger, and vice versa. Both companies have said that this is intended to create the world's largest instant messaging community, totally roughly 350 million accounts.
The rollout of new interoperable messaging clients will occur gradually however. While today marks the official day that the two IM clients will be compatible, not all users will have access to this new feature. Both Microsoft and Yahoo stated that the new service is still being tested. According to the press release:
Consumers worldwide from both Microsoft and Yahoo! will be able to take advantage of IM interoperability and join the limited public beta program. These consumers will be among the first to exchange instant messages across the free services, as well as see their friends' online presence, view personal status messages, share select emoticons, view offline messages and add new contacts from either service at no cost.(2) Yahoo! and Microsoft plan to make the interoperability between their respective IM services broadly available to consumers in the coming months.
Article continues at http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3303 (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3303)
Today, both Microsoft and Yahoo have made their respective instant messaging applications compatible with each other. (http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=203712&www.dailytech.com) In a joint program, Windows Live Messenger users will be able to communicate with users of Yahoo Messenger, and vice versa. Both companies have said that this is intended to create the world's largest instant messaging community, totally roughly 350 million accounts.
The rollout of new interoperable messaging clients will occur gradually however. While today marks the official day that the two IM clients will be compatible, not all users will have access to this new feature. Both Microsoft and Yahoo stated that the new service is still being tested. According to the press release:
Consumers worldwide from both Microsoft and Yahoo! will be able to take advantage of IM interoperability and join the limited public beta program. These consumers will be among the first to exchange instant messages across the free services, as well as see their friends' online presence, view personal status messages, share select emoticons, view offline messages and add new contacts from either service at no cost.(2) Yahoo! and Microsoft plan to make the interoperability between their respective IM services broadly available to consumers in the coming months.
Article continues at http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3303 (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3303)