IM Microsoft & Yahoo to Merge

Gareth · 12-10-2005, 23:15

There's an interesting article on BetaNews about MS and Yahoo announcing that as of next year they are going to merge their 2 currently disparate networks, so users of MSN will see their friends who use Yahoo online and vice-versa. It seems this move is partly to combat AOL's dominance, but also to combat Skype and Google Talk.

Personally I think they should have done this years ago. VoIP (although not necessarily through Skype) will, I believe, soon become even more popular than IM. Why type when you can talk?

Link: http://www.betanews.com/article/Micr...rks/1129075667

AndrewJ · 12-10-2005, 23:21

So users I know on Yahoo will be moved onto my Msn Messenger? oh joy....

Paul K · 13-10-2005, 05:44

I would think you will still keep the ability to control who you allow to see your online status and who you can block in your list.
About time they allowed cross-platform compatibility.

AndrewJ · 13-10-2005, 06:52

I agree as on Yahoo I love the stealth function, also how the webcam works seperate to the IM client windows.

But a merging of the two together? that I cannot imagine.

Paul K · 13-10-2005, 07:59

All they are doing is allowing the people using the clients to see each other. Up till now you had to run both clients at the same time to be able to contact Yahoo and MSN members. Now you will be able to do it with either client on it's own.
All they will be doing is allowing the Yahoo IM client to be able to "see" MSN users, recognise and interpret the emoticons and be able to directly contact them and vice versa.
The IM software as such will not be merging together, just becoming able to interact with each other fully.