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AT&T Re-ignites Instant Messaging War
travisd writes "Looks like AT&T Worldnet is trying to play Microsoft - no, not in being a monopoly, but in trying to horn in on AOL's IM turf. The Washington Post has the story.
" Yes, it's the return of the IM Wars - we had covered this this past summer. Microsoft was in the right on this one - a standard does need to be made, by an industry-wide group.
if you couldn't call your friend's house because they were using Microsoft Phone and you had AOL's You've Got A Phone. Sometimes standards are a good thing.
Apple was supposedly working with AOL to integrate AIM into the system at some level. I wonder whatever came of that...
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Am I taking AOL's side here? No. I think that if AOL wants to keep the their protocol non-standardized then Yahoo!, MS, and AT+T need to get together and make a standard protocol. Soon people will drop AOL's IM because they can communicate with more people through the new standardized system and AOL will suffer for its wrongdoings.
MS nor AT+T is accomplishing nothing by keeping this war going on, except maybe for once MS is in the role of the good guy and they don't want to lose that
ICQ has > 55,000,000 people using it
AOL has about the same
Yahoo had 20,000,000 I think the last time I heard
How many more people can want to keep in touch with people? Or is it going to be a case where we need once client to talk to Dave, and one for Sally and Fred (being the guy who has to have the newest software) we need a 3rd.
From the recently posted C|Net article about AT&T being blocked by AOL:
Despite warning signs, AT&T executives had been hopeful AOL would cooperate, especially given the online leader's recent push for so-called open access to cable networks.
It took nearly everything I had to not break out in a fit of laughter upon reading this. AOL is desperate to get direct access to *some* form of high speed gateway, to the point where they dumped a couple hundred million into *satellite* technology(DirectPC, to be specific. Great for rural areas, but rather horrific to scale--and one way, too).
So here you have AOL, banging on the doors, trying to get the law (very very justifiably!) twisted so that, gee whiz, there can actually *be* ISPs that don't own the direct lines of communication.
Meanwhile, at the very same time, Microsoft is banging on their door, trying to be an IMSP(Internet Messaging Service Provider) that doesn't own all of the direct communication servers.
The communications architectures are publically supported(guess whose land all that fiber's going over!), while the Instant Messanging systems *aren't*, but those are just *details*. On one hand, AOL wants open access to AT&T's property, and on the other, AOL wants closed access when it's their own damn network!
Oh, what a brilliant gambit on the part of AT&T, calling them on an apparent contradiction! I honestly would not be surprised if the only reason AT&T ever partnered with Tribal Voice in the first place was because they realized AOL Just Couldn't Win Both Battles--and either way, their "enemy" would be weakened by either loss.
AOL's counter should be interesting. I know some of the guys at AOL--hell, one of 'em is probably the single smartest networking guy I've ever met. We're talking about a company that, in response to Microsoft's attempts at circumventing their network security, consistently and repeatedly exploited security holes in Microsoft's AIM client, and likely threatened to announce exploits for their client unless Microsoft caved in. (They did.)
AOL is bound to have a truly fascinating response to all this. I, for one, am going to be watching, popcorn in hand.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
First off, it is very thoughtful of Slashdot editors to tell us who is right and who is wrong, without their expertise we might actually have to form our own opinions on the matter.
This is quite simple in my opinion, AOL provides the IM message service which it AFAIK created. In return for this free service AOL recieves money from the advertising banner it flashes across the screen. The key issue here is this. This is _AOL'S_ software. Other companies want to walk in, grab a hold of their large userbase, and walk away with it. Now if these companies were half as inventive as they were greedy, they'd create their own chat network. But of course not. The scream of "Open standards" quickly rallies slashdotters into a frenzy before they look at the issue here. AOL _created and maintain AIM_ it is _theirs_ nobody has the right to tell them what standards they should and shouldn't use. Now if these companies wish to make an open standard for their _own_ chat network, heck, more power to them. Personally I must say that AIM is one of the best pieces of software I've ever seen, it's fast, it's not filled with useless options, the advertisemens aren't annoying popups, etc.
Microsoft was in the right on this one - a standard does need to be made, by an industry-wide group.
... they should have found a better way to do it.
... email, but instead of setting up my own mail server, I hacked into yours and pointed all my users to it, then when you fixed your server so I couldn't get in, I hacked into it again to give my users free use of a resource I don't own, maintain, or hold accountability for?
When did hacking into a network and leeching it's resources for your own gain become a valid action when striving for industry wide standards?
I'd like to see standardized IM as much as anyone, but saying Microsoft is right is a bit far fetched. Microsoft is wrong for hacking into AOL's IM infrastructure after access was denied and AOL is wrong for exploiting their own client software to keep MS out
What if I wanted to get in on this exploding new technology called
And don't respond back with "email is an open standard, while IM is not" because that's not my point, my point is MSN HAS their own IM infrastructure and could have used it, but they decided to leech on the resources and investment of another company and when they were asked/told/forced to stop, they hacked it again. They are FAR from right in this case.
That isn't a valid comparison.
Why not?
You are running a clone of the AOL computer on your computer, and using the servers in the way they were designed. Saying that just because AOL owns the servers they shouldn't need to specify they can only be used with AOL clients is like saying Netscape should expect only Netscape browsers to hit www.netscape.com just because they made the first commercially successful web browser.
As for your property thing - sure, you are right there, but if you owned a large patch of countyside in the middle of a national park, and you didn't put fences around it you shouldn't be surprised if people trespass - and infact they would probably have a good case in court.
Here in Australia, the is an item of common law (inherited from England) that if an area of private property is used for public purposes continuously for a long period of time, a "right of way" is formed, and the owners can no longer stop people from using that area.
That is why places like Adelaide University, which has a large "public" throughfare through the middle close the gates once a year - to stop the public use. Apparently they didn't once, and the final year law students tried (in court) to get a right-of-way.
To get back to the point - perhaps something like this might (or should) apply on the 'Net - and with one netyear = 3realyears... do the sums for yourself.
I'm not really serious about the right-of-way on the Internet, but it does make you think, hey!