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Microsoft and AOL Fight Over Instant Messaging

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the when-giants-rumble-get-out-of-the-way dept.

Fizgig writes "Is it just me, or do they only call for standards when they're not winning? Microsoft just released their MSN instant messaging client, which could talk with AOL Instant Messenger users. AOL then changed the protocol slightly to break Microsoft's. Now Microsoft is calling for standards. And they somehow managed to mention Linux in a story that really has nothing to do with it. " Update: Around 11:30 p.m. EST, Keefesis noticed that MS had released an updated version of their Messenger client that works with the latest version of the AOL product. This MSN page has details.

2 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. My favorite quote by dattaway · · Score: 5

    I found this entertaining how they are battling themselves into the ground. My favorite quote was bashing Microsoft's regard for security and privacy:

    AOL charged that MSN Messenger poses a security risk to its users because they are asked to type in their AOL username and password. "They're goading people to reveal their password just like hackers do,"the AOL spokeswoman said. "We always tell our customers to never give out their passwords. Microsoft is going against what we've tried to do."

  2. TiK is the casualty of this, and more articles by matasar · · Score: 5
    The scariest (to me) thing to come out of this is that the TiK and TNT open source clients have disappeared from the AIM Web site. That alone doesn't make me feel very good about the new owners of mozilla. As much as I hate to say this, I think MS is right on this one.

    Also, geeknews.net has been keeping up pretty well on this.

    Here's a news.com article, too:

    Another interesting thing is that MS released a "fixed" build, which AOL then broke again. Round and round we go.