Holy Trillian, Batman, Yahoo and MSN are bridging the gap between their two competing services alllowing MSN Messenger users to send/receive messages to Yahoo and vice versa. On the heels of the Real and Microsoft $761 million kiss and makeup announcement, is this the sign of a new Microsoft that actually plans to embrace playing in the sandbox for the sake of users?

Hmm.

via the Yahoo press release:

The industry’s first interoperability agreement between two distinct leading global consumer IM providers will give MSN® Messenger and Yahoo!® Messenger users the ability to interact with each other, forming what is expected to be the largest consumer IM community in the world, estimated to be more than 275 million strong.

The good news is those who use both systems who aren’t already using Trillian or Qnext or any of the other multiple-IM client systems, they’ll have integration. Also, it is good to see a move towards the big companies sharing. That is a very positive sign of the times and exciting to see.

(applause)

And don’t forget VoIP offerings from both companies. It’s a necessary step for widespread VoIP adoption for interoperability between all IM/VoIP clients but I’m not sure if that will ever happen. Don’t want to put any hex on it, of course, because it would be good for users, but egos and competitive spirit will keep that from being a reality any time soon.

The bad news for users of either/both IM clients: this won’t happen until 2nd quarter 2006. Here we go again: another announcement in … the … future.

As opposed to Apple who announced something new today and people can actually do something today about it — today — we’re left with another wait and see, coming soon story.

Vista? Late 2006. Office upgrades? Late 2006. Visual Studio? 2006. IM interoperability with Yahoo? 2nd quarter 2006.

Yeah, yeah, we get it. It’s all coming in 2006. The only new major Microsoft news in 2005 is the Xbox 360 next month. For Microsoft’s sake, hope this one lives up to the massive amount of hype. With an initial games launch schedule extremely top heavy with sequels, the sky is cloudy.

Overall, though, this IM announcement is good news. Kudos to Microsoft and Yahoo for pulling the trigger.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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