It’s official … Yahoo and Microsoft will introduce a cluster of “interconnectivity capabilities” IM, presence awareness, emoticons and adding new contacts) between MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger in 2Q06 — creating a 275 million-plus IM community. From the press release:
— Yahoo CEO Terry Semel: “This is truly a turning point for the IM industry, and we believe our agreement with Microsoft will help usher in a new era of IP communications.”
— Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: “IM interoperability is the right thing for our customers, our businesses and the industry as a whole, and Microsoft is delighted to help lead these efforts with Yahoo!”
News.com: Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo’s COO said the two companies wouldn’t snub attempts by AOL or Google to interoperate, but Yahoo and Microsoft need to focus on getting the technical difficulties solved by combining their two networks first. The agreement is limited in scope to core features and voice only between PCs. “Right now this agreement does not contemplate voice other than PC-to-PC voice, but as we roll this out” outbound calling will be considered, Rosensweig said.
Related: Microsoft, Yahoo Plan IM Interoperability Pact
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post