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Microsoft Introduces IM Licensing
prostoalex writes "The MSN Messenger ban of outside clients and cited security issues might be explained by yet another Microsoft move. The company's Internet unit, MSN, contacted third-party providers like Trillian and Odigo with a suggestion to buy access licenses. From the ZDNet article: 'Running an (IM) network is expensive,' said Lisa Gurry, group product manager for MSN at Microsoft. 'We can't sustain multiple other people's businesses, particularly if they charge for certain versions of their software. We're introducing licensing processes for third parties like Trillian.'"
Particularly ones who charge eh? What about gaim or any of the other clients that are free? Hopefully none of the developers buy this license, or it will prompt others like AOL or Yahoo to take similar actions. Who's going to foot the bill then? Users!
But I think they are making the right move on this one. They do support a huge IM network. It was nice of them to let other clients use the network. But with the popularity of third party clients like Trillian, they lose revenue from the banner advertisements in their messenger program. They also make a point about that especially how Trillian charges for a version of its client, without giving any of that money to Microsoft. I am sorry, but it is their service. They really do not have to let any other clients run it.
Control.
If i'm using MSN Messenger to chat to my friends, i'll be using the same resources as if i connect via trillian. So, the cost is EXACTLY the same. This therefore can NOT be the root of the decision.
Its control. Microsoft have always demonstrated that they want to control the way users experience the internet, and as such do anti-competitive things, such as this, to ensure no one can wrestle control away from them.
Solution? Use free* chat protocols, and give-up some of your time to help less computer savvy users migrate away from MSN.
AOL has already changed their protocol on several occasions specifically to break the clients. This is nothing new.
I don't understand the big deal here. The MSN Messenger servers are Microsoft property. If they want to charge 3rd party clients to use them, that's their prerogative. And it seems to be a perfectly legitimate business move, unless you're of the persuasion that believes the public is "entitled" to use these servers in any way they choose. I disagree, however, and so do private property laws in the US.
However, providing a good option for migration is, which is why multi-protocol chat programs is important.
If we can work together to make a client (and there's plenty out there such as GAIM etc) that is as user-friendly and easy to install as MSN, then it would go a long way to solving this problem.
The new MSN has gimics to get ppl to use it, like integrated games, once you have a protocol defined surely it wouldnt be too hard to have a nicely defined API so people could write add-ons?
I don't see anything wrong with this. MS built the network and maintains it, its their property. If someone else is going to sell software that uses their network that they pay for, they should get some of that money. Yes, they complained the most about AOL's closed networks, but this is different. If you make AOL's network work with MSN's network and both work with Yahoo's network, then you can all use the network since you're all bringing something to the table, you're all contributing. What does Trilian do for them? I think asking Trilian for a cut of what they charge is more than fair.
Don't like it? Build your own system, or use Jabber.
This was no nicer of them than it was nice when they decided to "give away" internet explorer with windows. That move was aimed at killing off Netscape. This particular MS freebie has been intended to freeze out yahoo, aol, icq and the rest.
The make it free and allow 3rd party clients so they can get the user base. Now they have that user base, its time to start freezing out the free clients. When that's done, there'll only be on free messenger program for MSN. How long do yur suppose the pay clients will last after that? Espcially once MS starts messing about with the protocol to bugger them up.
And when the majority of people use MSN running the MS client - that's when they start charging for it.
"Nice!"
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
"'We can't sustain multiple other people's businesses" Like hell they can't. $40b liquid in the bank, nothing but time to blow Why the hell should they support other people's business without getting a cut of the profits? Doesn't matter if they have 40 billion or 40 dollars in the bank. They don't have to let Trilian get a free ride.
Obviously a ploy to price the 3rd party clients off of their servers. Having control of the client software gives them more control over what we see and hear. But whats next? Will they, for example, stop 3rd party browsers such as Opera from being able to access their web servers? Oh...wait....deja vu
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
Your logic is flawed, if a buisness owned all roads, and had to pay for the ability for each car to use it, and that company designed roads to work using its car that had mechanisms to generate money to help pay for said road, then the analogy would work. But the way it is in reality the roads are public property, microsoft's IM service isnt. so the analogy doesnt work. Microsoft foots the bill for the service, that gives them the right to attempt to charge people that want to use it outside their sphere of influence.
If you add one more phone to a network, millions more potential person-to-person calls can be made. The value grows exponentially and.
If I were a regular MSN user, this decision would affect many of my PERSONAL friends using Trillian who can't message me anymore. My buddy list shrinks. No MSN-only buddies to talk to? That sucks,I quit. That causes other peoples' MSN buddy lists to shrink. They quit. Pretty soon MSN Messenger has the rep "Well, no one uses it, so why should I?" Negative feedback loop.
Having everyone leave MSN Messenger should reduce their costs like they want anyway.
I think what it comes down to is control. By using their own protocol, Microsoft becomes the epicenter of all communications, which gives them the ability to leverage other technologies down its customers' throats. As has been demonstrated with the latest Netmeeting and Outlook Express and MSNIM, Microsoft isn't afraid to construct a web of dependencies between its applications. If you get one product, prepare to have five unrelated applications shoved down your throat as well. When every single user is at your beck and call, you don't have to fight as hard to push your agenda.
At first glance this is predictable and understandable. Why would one build a network and let people make money off that network without contributing back? That's pretty much all the GPL asks of those using protected code, abstractly of course :-)
What doesn't really have any justification is locking out all clients. That is unless there is a licensing agreement between Microsoft and Apple which would clear up the reasoning for supporting Macs but not open source platforms like Linux...
But it's very possible that there is a licensing agreement of which I've not been aware.
(Then I'd only have one hundred issues with Microsoft rather than one hundred and one.)
"Running an (IM) network is expensive," said Lisa Gurry, group product manager for MSN at Microsoft.
Well, so why do they create such a centralized network in the first place? Microsoft doesn't run a centralized mailer for every Microsoft software user, so why should they run a centralized IM server for everybody?
The centralized IM infrastructure is an aberration. The sooner companies like Microsoft and AOL give up their stranglehold and the sooner it gets replaced with a distributed system based on open protocols (kind of like IRC), the better.
But the fact is that the IM providers actually like the control. Each of them hopes that they'll own it all sooner or later, kind of like the phone company used to be.
So, Microsoft, if you don't like the expense of running Microsoft IM services, just don't, and put client and server software based on open protocols into Windows. Problem solved, expense gone.
no, im sorry,
as far as the road analogy, i have to say that if it is a private road and you let someone use it for a time, and then decide not to, they cannot legally use it without permission.
A good friend of mine did just this. He has a private road that happens to be in a convenient place for a business not very far from him. The businessman didn't slow down for his children, so he chained it off. The guy was infuriated, and took him to court on it. The judge saw fit to rule in my friends favor because well, it was private property.
so in short, yes, if the server/road is theirs they have every right to say that only licsenced clients/fords can use them.
No, but you see them encouraging exactly that. Unlimited PCS to PCS, anyone?
Railroads would probably be a more accurate comparison. Where the infrastructure is paid for and maintained by a company that originally intended it for only their trains. You would hardly expect amtrak to let "Joe Trillian's Free* Train Service" run on their tracks free of charge, especially if the free* train service was turning a profit. Also, you wouldn't expect a bakery to let the "across town bakery" use some of their display case space to sell their cookies, without being compensated.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
All their asking is to share a little bit of the cost burden. What's wrong with that?
On the surface, nothing. It's a reasonable request. However, not all 3rd party IM clients charge (GAIM and Kopete come to mind, gee, both for GNU/Linux...), so not all 3rd party clients' developers have money to buy a license, even if they wanted to. That puts free (beer) IM programs at an automatic disadvantage.
Quoth Microsoft person: 'Running an (IM) network is expensive,'
Yes, I don't doubt it. That's why the monolithic IM network concept is inherently flawed. Architecturally, I FAR prefer the design of Jabber, for precisely that reason. It's distributed, the same way the email network is. No one person/company bears the burden of maintaining it, and anyone can setup their own jabber server on their own domain, just as you can setup your own SMTP server. It's far more stable (no single point of failure like Passport), far cheaper (cost is the same as for email; time of whoever runs the server, which could be yourself if you want), and doesn't suffer from the potential for abuse from the company that owns the server farm (MS, AOL, Yahoo!)
I have a few issues with Jabber's use of XML as a message encoding system (very verbose for sending to per-KB-billed handhelds and phones), but the basic architecture concept is far supeior to any of the Big Four. As soon as I manage to get a working server going, I want to try and move my company over to Jabber for our online communication. (We've been using MSM, with me on GAIM, but that won't work for much longer...)
Really, I encourage everyone to take a serious look at Jabber as what the future of IM should be.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
I know. As long as MSN works, why switch to another client? Well, the only answer I know is this: It doesn't work for everyone anymore. I don't expect to have a working MSN client for Linux or other alternative OSes soon. If any of my MSN-using friends need to keep in touch with me by IM, they'll have to use Jabber or ICQ (and there's no reason to use ICQ now, it sucks painfully compared to MSN or Jabber. Just try to remember your contact list when you accidentally deleted it, for instance.). I expect at least one of them to start using Jabber, because he sometimes needs help with Linux, and I'm often able to help.
I think I started using Jabber because I expected something like this from Microsoft. ICQ had already done it earlier: changed the protocol to force users to switch to a more bloated and ad-infested client. Unfortunately, MS is much more experienced in user lock-in than any other company, and they have a larger user base than ICQ ever had.
I was most surprised by the MS spokesperson's comment that there was an as-yet-undisclosed exploit in the MSN Messenger software.
"Here, take this 'trustworthy' software; there's something big and wrong with the one you've got right now but we're not going to tell you what it is."
I just signed up for Jabber, I encourage all of you to do the same. Microsoft is going to try to use its monopoly to club all the other IM clients AND protocols. Time to jump off their ship.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
How easily it will be for non-Windows based IM applications to get that license? Trillian and Odigo are both Windows based apps.
Are Linux-only licensees going to be allowed to buy a license? How about non-M$ based smartphones?
I doubt it. Microsoft wants its cake and wants to eat it too. I'm keeping my MSN Messenger on only as a way to get contacted by someone and then to tell them to use another system.
-Russ
Me
MSN is not an interconnected mesh network. Microsoft is the only one who owns the servers. There are no other MSN servers other then the Microsoft servers.
It'd be more like Tim Berners Lee charging people who access his website with clients that block banner ads.
... and it's still uncertain what will happen to GPL-licensed IMs out there like jabber, miranda and gaim, b/c they're obviously "viral software" for microsoft.
Actually probably Microsoft will give some source code of their protocol to licensees so it's probably worth the money for commercial IMs - they won't need to reverse-engineer the protocol and will save a money.
Will GPL IMs have a money to pay for license ?
Will they have a right to disclose the source, or license will prohibit them doing so ?
Seems like an attack on open-source IMs for me - quite sad.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
You want to control humans? OK... just give them the illusion that they have choises!
I remember Microsoft vrying like babies that AOL should open up their protocol to MSN. Now they are doing the very same thing and trying to blame costs. We all know that costs has nothing to do with the matter. Neither competing IM apps on windows. This is all about making life harder on competing platforms.
I will start using jabber instead and lobby to everyone i know to do the same.
HTTP/1.1 400
...MSN messenger comes with Windows.
So, they're abusing their monopoly to take over the IM market, then charging alternative providers or blocking them to make sure they really have the IM market. Alright, so they still have competitors, but they're giving themselves a massive advantage...
``Running an (IM) network is expensive''
Yup. That's why we have IRC. It's venerable, open, extensible, has all the features, and allows distribution of load/cost.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Remember when AOL and Time Warner merged in 2000 and the FCC stated that AOL must work towards making its AIM network interoperable with other competing services and that if AOL wanted to enable "video conferencing and other advanced features via Time Warner's broadband cable lines" that they would need to open its IM network to competition?
And Microsoft was complaining that AOL should open their AIM network to other IM clients? A Microsoft spokesperson said, "As we've said all along, we believe that the ultimate benefit for consumers is a standard for instant messaging/interoperability among all IM products. MSN continues to work with the IETF and the rest of the industry to make that happen so that consumers can communicate openly and freely with friends and family no matter what instant messaging service they use."
Have they forgotten?
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to get at. Having a multitude of servers is optional. There are a number of public Jabber servers around that anyone can sign up to. All of them interoperate with each other.
For instance, I use IM to talk to people I work with and my friends. To connect all of them, someone would need to have a Jabber server set up that could connect all of us.
Which any Jabber server can. The Jabber network is not lots of independant monolithic Jabber servers, it is a distributed network of Jabber servers (although you can run a private closed server if you want). You seem to be confused about the capabilities of Jabber.
If your premise were true, no company would ever go bankrupt since everything they did would be to their benefit, involving "undoubtable profit".
Companies take risks every day pursuing ideas which are expensive but have the possibility of becoming profitable ventures. Sometimes the risks bear fruit and sometimes they don't.
Also, lay off with the "whilt" and "visa vi" window dressing. It isn't concealing the fact that your post is pretty damn weak.
You can't polish a turd.
It's not just about blocking *ix/*bsd. I use Trillian Pro through Win2K/XP systems because it rolls all the clients up into one, so I would suffer as well. I hate having a plethora of IM clients open. Don't treat it as another Win vs Lin crusade. You'll have more people on your side if you see it as the cross-platform problem issue that it is.
This is about blocking alternative clients that do not offer links into their web shops and do not offer an ad banner pointing to their ads. I imagine that if Trillian (Pro or free version) offered an ad banner than all IM services could submit into, then they wouldn't make such a stink about that access into their networks. I for one would still not want to see that, so my solution is going to have to be to wait and see what Trillian developers do or just drop contact with my MSN messenger pals.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
The simple fact is that, like everything else, they are the de facto owners of this market because of their monopoly OS. Otherwise, everybody would just laugh at the idea of an IM client that refuses to interoperate with anything, just like some new email client that makes "special" emails only readable by itself. Kinda makes you shudder to think what the Internet would be like if MS had bothered to participate in its construction instead of clinging to the notion of distributing everything on CDs.
Well, I can argue that they're hypocrites. After all, they were never satisfied when AOL said "it's our network, we can do what we want."
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
If Ford owned the road, then they sure as heck could do that. It's their property, they can do with it as they wish. If Microsoft wants to prevent any client other than a MS-licenced client from accessing their network, then so be it.
Bad analogy, Ford doesn't own a monopoly of cars or roads.
Put yourself in Microsoft's position for a minute (yes, I know it's a pianful thought, but try it anyway). Do you want somebody else to profit while you maintain the infrastructure at your own expense?
Why did they let everyone to do it for years? A guess: typical MS maneuver, once everybody is in because you integrate it in the OS and you're open and let everyone else connect, lock and make mo' money.
The monopoly, as allways.
Nobody (for the most part) uses an IM network because of the client. They use it because of the network and the people who use that network. MS should simply acknowledge that in their business model. There's a simple way to do that: stop licensing the client and start licensing access to the network. You buy Windows, it comes with a license to use the network automatically. You don't use Windows, you'll need to get a license from somewhere else (like buying one from MS). End of problem.
MS, of course, will never even consider this, because the problem from their PoV isn't third-party clients accessing their network, it's clients other than theirs existing at all.
Gaim/kopete wont be able to license ms messenger.
Says who?
Have they approached Microsoft and been refused?
The article even specifically mentioned "companies who are selling clients". Can we wait until their is actual evidence before sending out the lynch mob? Perhaps the GAIM people will contact Microsoft and recieve a license as long as they don't charge for their client...
The whole idea of having to pay for messenger access is fairly ridiculous anyway, user records dont need alot of space on the server, clients could message p2p.. so you only need a very thin server side daemon. The idea that its more secure ... ms is using its own flaws in its own defense.
I dont normally see things in a ms vs open source light but in this case there is little other reason evident.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
"Companies who are selling clients" automatically excludes Gaim. Even if this was not the case, where do you think all the money for the license is going to come from? Are you implying that Microsoft are just going to give a license to the Gaim folks out of the goodness of their own hearts? What about Microsoft's monopolistic behavior makes you think that they'd do something without the possibility for profit, like giving away licenses?
This isn't about whether a protocol can be copyrighted is it? It's about whether a protocol is IP (which it is) and whether Microsoft has the right to control access to its IP (which it does).
You're full of shit. Something isn't property -- intellectual or otherwise -- unless property rights are attached. Something against which property rights cannot be enforced has no capital value. Intellectual property is a convenient synonym for "intellectual capital."
A protocol -- which is nothing more than a process -- is not protected by copyright law nor by trademark law and can only be protected by patents in limited cases (and this isn't one of them).
The MSN protocol, in other words, is not "intellectual property" in any commonly accepted definition of the term any more than... the English language is "intellectual property." IP, as such, is a legal fiction that is of very recent coinage. If you do any research into the facts, you will find it is applicable to a much less broad set of things than you think.
You could demand that they do not force their clients on users by means of their monopoly.
:
That means
1) an I.M. to every existing MSN user saying there are alternatives, with a link to a jabber client (the one specified by the author of jabber)
2) make MSN messenger a separate product, which has to be BOUGHT SEPARATELY (ie NO DUMPING)
3) no advertisements inside windows for MSN messenger.
AFTER they do that, they can close their network all they want.
If other browsers other than IE had not been around, I am sure that IE would have eventually become pay-to-use.
On another note, how can M$ claim that it costs them money? MS IM is a protocol, nothing more. There is no middle server or anything like that, unless you count the passport that is needed to log in to the IM. Oh, wait, I forgot, they forced that one on to us! I can log into hotmail, create a passport, use IM with Windows Messenger and there is no cost to me. However, when joe bloggs uses client x, suddenly there is a cost? I don't get it!
Karem Lore
When all is said and done, nothing changes...