WASHINGTON-Several instant messaging companies, telecom carriers and Internet service and content providers have formed an organization dedicated to achieving true instant messaging interoperability among competing platforms.
The IMUnified coalition said it intends to create specifications by the end of August that will allow interoperable instant messaging among its members by supporting protocols developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Founding members include AT&T Corp., Excite@Home, iCAST Corp., the MSN network, Odigo, Phone.com Inc., Prodigy, Tribal Voice and Yahoo! Inc.
Noticeably absent from the list is America Online Inc. The company’s Instant Messenger service commands the greatest user base in the industry, estimated at 90 percent of all instant messaging users. AOL has cited several privacy and security concerns about opening up its instant messaging system to other platforms and continually blocks all attempts by others to access its system.
“Internet users want to exchange instant messages with each other, regardless of which service they use,” said Brian Park, senior producer at Yahoo!. “We welcome the participation of other interested IM companies who share the vision of interoperability based on open standards and encourage them to join our efforts.”
Several of the coalition members have a level of interoperability today. The IMUnified group said it hopes to focus efforts on achieving a deeper level of interoperability with the goal of enabling all instant messaging users with a service as seamless as today’s voice and e-mail networks, yet with a high level of security and privacy.
Instant messaging is considered a valuable application to wireless networks. The pervasive messaging model espoused by several carriers would allow users at various Internet-enabled devices-be it computer, two-way pager, PDA or Web-enabled phone-to seamlessly trade instant messages with each other regardless of who provides the specific instant messaging application.
“The emergence of wireless IM draws attention to the lack of IM interoperability, as wireless users accustomed to placing calls to anyone will logically demand the same degree of flexibility with respect to instant messaging,” the coalition said in a statement.
“Web-enabled wireless phones will put `always-on’ IM in the pockets of hundreds of millions of new users around the world,” said Marc Linden, group vice president of Carrier Applications at Phone.com.”We want to give each and every one of these new users the broadest amount of choice and flexibility when they seek to reach out and communicate with others.”
The participation of AOL is necessary for this to happen, however, and this coalition is expected to put further pressure on the world’s largest ISP to play ball.
Adding to this pressure was a Federal Communications Commission hearing last week on AOL’s proposed merger with Time Warner Inc. regarding possible antitrust concerns. Some expect AOL to relinquish its instant messaging dominance to appease federal regulators.
