It seems the IM wars are heating up again. A couple years ago, it seemed every provider was fighting to gain access to the others network while keeping their own networked closed. Last week, Yahoo and MSN announced they would be opening up their networks to each other. Of course, they wanted everyone to be happy about it. For me, it is too late.
I have been using Trillian or GAIM for the past couple of years, and I'm not going back to their proprietary crap. Sure, I might be missing out on webcams, but who really uses that stuff? I just want to be able to send quick messages with whowever I want and not worry about which network I am using.
Of course, one new twist is the relatively new Google Talk. Although Google is proprietary, that are using the Jabber protocol. They have offered to hook up with any company that is willing. They also give instructions on how to connect to their network with non-Google clients. The Google Talk client is actually rather lacking. The only reason it gets my attention is the excellent VOIP chat. For now, not many people I know are willing to switch to Google Talk. I guess that Google Talk is just wait and see for the time being.
No matter what happens in the short term, I believe IM will become as interoperable as email. Right now, email systems are transparent to the users. The only thing that matters is the client that they see. Imagine that... Software vendors will have to compete based on their software. Once this happens, then I will be happy.
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