by Playfuls Staff |
14th July 2006
Previous discussions about Microsoft taking over Yahoo did not finalize positively so the two giants decided it’s time to stop the war and collaborate. Only in the instant messaging domain for now.[more]
In May 2006 a rumor shook the entire IT world: Microsoft was thinking to acquire Yahoo for a dazzling $80 billion dollars, $40 billion in cash and the rest in company shares. Bill Gates decided though that Yahoo was a content company rather than technology company, and that he was not interested in owning a content company. MS planned to integrate Yahoo's strength concerning search and advertising categories into its MSN portal, but failed to do that after Yahoo officials considered the $80 billion offer as ...too small. Just for the record, Microsoft has $40 billion in cash at hand.
Now that things have settled down, Yahoo and Microsoft proudly announced the interoperability of their IM clients, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. It’s not really breaking news, since the interoperability was planned a year ago, when Microsoft and Yahoo accepted to cooperate in the IM domain, for the benefit of their clients. The interoperability would eventually allow more freedom to customers, who put a lot of pressure on both giants to achieve this.
Although it has not been a surprise (there are a lot of programs that allow you to see who is online for both Yahoo and Live IM, like Trillian) the interoperability is an important step in the IM fight, because each company fights for an important market share, which would ensure more publicity contracts (IM programs are in totally free, so they sustain themselves through ads promoted to users).
Yahoo and Microsoft stated that they have built a software bridge between their popular IM applications, thus allowing the creation of the world’s largest IM and social community. In their combined press release the two companies mentioned that this community reaches more than 350 million IM accounts, now merged together due to interoperability.
"This first-of-its-kind interoperability between consumer IM leaders Microsoft and Yahoo! gives our customers tremendous control, convenience and freedom in their Web communication experiences with Windows Live," said Blake Irving, corporate vice president, Windows Live Platform at Microsoft. "We're proud to deliver this latest advancement in IM services that empower people to communicate with virtually whomever they want, wherever they want and whenever they want."
"Interoperability between IM services has consistently topped our users' wish lists, and through the collaborative efforts between Yahoo! and Microsoft we are delighted to provide our combined global users with the ultimate IM experience," said Brad Garlinghouse, senior vice president of Communications, Community and Front Doors, Yahoo! "A new era for staying connected with friends and family is here, and the bridge between Yahoo!'s and Microsoft's IM communities is bringing people around the world closer together."
Consumers worldwide from Microsoft and Yahoo will be among the first to exchange instant messages across the free services as well as see their friends' online presence, view personal status messages, share/select emoticons, view offline messages and add new contacts from either service at no cost. Yahoo and Microsoft plan to make the interoperability between their respective IM services broadly available to consumers in the coming months.
An initial Beta testing session for the new feature of both Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger will be available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the UK and the US.
Instant Messaging has evolved rapidly in the past two years, from simple, real-time text conversations on mIRC to free, limitless video calls from PC to PC, files or folders exchange and even calls made to usual landline or mobile phones. The leader in PC-to-phones calls is now Skype, which also features IM capabilities, but is mostly renowned for free, PC-to-PC calls using Voice over Internet Protocol technology (VoIP) or low-fee calls from PC to usual phones (or the reverse, phone to PC.)
Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice users in the U.S. and more than 15 international markets can register to participate in the IM interoperability beta by visiting Yahoo! at http://messenger.yahoo.com or Microsoft at http://ideas.live.com.
Recently, Yahoo! Inc. introduced a new beta of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice with custom plug-in features. Plug-ins are free mini applications that can be easily added to the Yahoo! Messenger with Voice experience to make it that much more personal and interactive.
People can view the latest featured plug-ins as well as customize their own suite of plug-ins from the Plug-in Picker, which is easily accessed from below the contact list.
Through the Yahoo! Developer Network (http://developer.yahoo.com) Yahoo! is committed to opening up its products for third party developers to create applications which utilize Yahoo!'s technology in innovative ways. For the first time, Yahoo! is opening up its real time communication platform to spark innovation and encourage the developer community to create plug-ins with the new software developer kit (SDK). The plug-in SDK is available at: http://developer.yahoo.com/messenger. Developers can work with Yahoo! to make their plug-ins available to Yahoo! Messenger with Voice users at http://us.gallery.yahoo.com/messenger.
On the other side, Microsoft has also released the latest version of its Windows Live Messenger at the end of June, but the really important event that captured everyone’s attention was the leaving of Windows Live-project chief, Martin Taylor, at almost the same time.
