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AOL Won't Enable Instant Messaging Interoperability

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the walled-garden dept.

chill writes "Wired is reporting 'America Online is scaling back efforts to make its popular instant messaging system work with rivals, saying the task has proven too difficult and expensive.' That's funny, they don't seem to have a problem blocking anyone who figures out how to interoperate. Legally, they are not supposed to offer "next gen" IM over Time Warner's cable lines until they can interoperate. We shall see."

3 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. Re:Why? by keesh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It was one of the conditions of the merger of AOL and TW. They were only allowed to merge if they met certain conditions (anti-monopoly measures), one of which was allowing interoperability with other IM clients.

  3. Can't completely blaim AOL by BlackMesaResearchFac · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They have the vast majority of the users and are invested in the infrastructure, it shouldn't be a surprise that they are dragging their feet. They have a LOT to lose. And it's something to lose to MS.

    Nobody needs to be reminded of the rival AOL vs. MSN, IE vs. Netscape, yadda yadda.

    AOL probably just wants to prevent their butts from being undercut by MS. The last thing they want to do is invest tons of resources into something and have MS change the ball game on them. Without some sort of standards/agreement they're vulernable and MS knows it.

    --
    -- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...