IM giants drop some barriers to peace

This is news! This is an amazing step for corporate users to be able to use one client to access all their friends and contacts. While this could be looked on as making it easier for people to goof off at work, I know that many people use IM, public IM, to chat with vendors, customers, and colleagues.

Now, I doubt that the the major players with cooperate in the public space, but I do think a third part could license from them to build a multi-protocol application. Maybe the folks at Trillian will get something in the works.

IM giants drop some barriers to peace
Last modified: July 15, 2004, 6:36 AM PDT
By Jim Hu and David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

After years of mudslinging, Microsoft, America Online and Yahoo on Thursday made a surprising overture toward peace in the instant-messaging wars.
The companies announced that later this year Microsoft’s Live Communications Server (LCS), which offers instant messaging for corporate users, will connect with AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and its own MSN Messenger.
However, the three public IM clients will still not connect with one another for public users. Instead, it means corporations that use LCS will allow employees to chat with the Big Three public IM services as well.