Bij ZDNet kunnen we lezen dat AOL Time Warner morgen (maandag) aan de Amerikaanse overheid moet aangeven wat zij gaat doen om concurrenten toe te laten tot haar instant messaging netwerken. Dit is één van de voorwaarden die voortvloeit uit de fusie van het concern. Concurrenten als Yahoo en Microsoft willen toegang tot de AOL-netwerken van ICQ en AIM om de verschillende systemen uitwisselbaar te maken. Microsoft wil zelfs IM met videoconferencing opnemen in Windows XP.
The filing to the Federal Communications Commission marks the latest chapter in an ongoing saga over creating a common language for IM services to communicate--a fight that has pitted some of the technology's largest competitors against each other in a bitter battle over control of one the fastest-growing technologies on the Net.
Lack of interoperability continues to hamper IM development. But analysts say it is not the make-or-break issue for deep-pocket newcomers to the business, such as Microsoft, that many had once assumed it was.
[...] The coalition portrayed AOL as a monopolist in IM market share and aggressively asked regulators to force AOL to open its network to grow the market. As a result of their efforts, IMUnified ended up convincing the FCC to attach a condition for merger approval, but not one that satisfied IMUnified's objectives.
Bedankt Smoothy_ voor dit nieuws.
