Topic: Microsoft and Yahoo! 'to merge IM chat' >-:)

[Clive]

The Register
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Published Wednesday 12th October 2005 07:15 GMT

Microsoft and Yahoo! will allow users of their respective IM chat services to communicate with each other without recourse to a third-party client, such as Trillian, according to a report. Neither company would confirm the story to the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft and Yahoo! hold 44 per cent of the worldwide IM user base between them, with AOL taking the lion's share of 56 per cent, according to Radicati Group. Third parties such as Jabber aren't statistically significant, with Google's Jabber-based chat holding just 0.5 per cent, and apparently irc doesn't count.

The IM service operators have pledged to improve interoperability for the general consumer for many years. However, the efforts have only borne fruit in the enterprise space. AOL has solemnly vowed to improve interoperability twice: once in a promise to the FCC after the Time Warner merger, and again as a result of the 2003 agreement which settled its differences with Microsoft. Nothing came of either pledge.

These days all the major players regard IM clients as a vehicle for voice communication, typically at the expense of adding inter-network interoperability. AOL and Yahoo! both introduced PC-to-PC calling in late 1999 and Microsoft followed suit in MSN Messenger the following year. But the spread of broadband has seen VoIP services like Skype and Vonage gain a strong following, and neither of the established players want to cede the desktop space to new challengers.

While the technical challenge of agreeing protocols is trivial, harmonizing the respective smiley sets could provide a challenge. Wink-dash-bracket. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/12/microsoft_yahoo_im_interop/

[chorleydave]

Not before time!

[Clive]

Instant messaging pact sparks worm fears

Joris Evers
CNET News.com
October 13, 2005, 10:45 BST
 
Yahoo Messenger users could be in for a shock as they join up with Microsoft's network, the target of most IM worms
  
The planned bridge between MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger has one drawback, experts warn: It could act as a conduit for a massive IM worm outbreak.

On Wednesday, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they would make their instant-messaging services interoperable. By the middle of next year, users of both are expected to be able to exchange instant messages, see if their contacts are online, share emoticons, add friends from either service and make PC-to-PC voice calls.

But the partnership has a flipside, an instant-messaging security expert said. "As Microsoft, Yahoo and others connect their global IM networks, IM worms will spread faster and attack a larger population of end-users," said Jon Sakoda, chief technology officer at messaging security company IMlogic.

Instant-messaging service users are being hit with more worm and malicious code attacks than ever before. The number of threats detected for IM and peer-to-peer networks rose 3,295 percent in the third quarter of 2005, compared with last year, according to a recent IMlogic report. The company sells products to help businesses protect themselves against IM-borne pests, in competition with companies such as Akonix Systems.

"A worm could proliferate further and faster on the combined network," Akonix spokesman Don Montgomery agreed. "The need for security rises as we now have a much bigger network and much more usage."

The alliance could turn up the heat on people using Yahoo IM. Microsoft's network is the most popular object of IM worms, with 62 percent of attacks in the third quarter this year aimed at MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger, IMlogic said. In the same period, only 7 percent of IM worms went after Yahoo Messenger.

"Worms that are traditionally targeting MSN will also target the Yahoo users," Sakoda said.

America Online's AOL Instant Messenger dominates the instant-messaging arena in the United States, tallying 51.5 million users in September, according to research firm Nielsen/NetRatings. That compares with 27.3 million for MSN and 21.9 million for Yahoo. Providing a secure IM service is top priority at Yahoo and Microsoft, said Terrell Karlsten, a Yahoo spokeswoman. "This priority is certainly extending to the interoperability between our two communities," she said. "We will certainly continue to innovate together and leverage our collective best practices to keep IM safe and secure."

Yahoo's statement was echoed by Microsoft. "Microsoft and Yahoo share a commitment to deliver IM interoperability while keeping consumer security, safety and privacy top of mind," Brooke Richardson, a lead product manager for MSN at Microsoft, said in an emailed statement.