Coalition Attacks AOL Instant Message Stance
A new industry group founded by a who's who of the instant messaging game - minus America Online Inc. - said it soon will publish specifications for interoperability among its members' services.
Operating under the name IMUnified, the group said it will make its guidelines available by the end of August, with the aim of supporting protocols developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in its efforts to create standards for instant messaging (IM) interoperability.
The list of IMUnified founding members includes Microsoft Corp., AT&T Corp., At Home Corp., Yahoo Inc., Phone.com Inc., Prodigy Communications Corp., and Tribal Voice.
Conspicuous by its absence is AOL, long a target of complaints over its practice of preventing third-party access to its own Instant Messenger service, which dominates the space in North America. (AOL also owns ICQ.)
In a press release announcing the coalition today, IMUnified didn't mention AOL specifically, but a "frequently asked questions" section of its Web site states that "many of the founding companies have been frustrated by the inability to achieve exchange of IM with other leading IM providers, such as AOL."
However, the document also points out that not all of IMUnified's members are able to exchange IM data either.
"Internet users want to exchange instant messages with each other, regardless of which service they use," said Brian Park, a 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."
IMUnified said it would initially work to ensure that the companies' existing technologies can share data, but claimed its long-term plan was to focus on more substantial interoperability by adopting IETF standards.
The unveiling of IMUnified comes just before the start of Federal Communications Commission hearings this week on AOL's proposed purchase of Time Warner Inc.
IMUnified can be found online at: http://www.imunified.org.
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.