These days most of us can’t get away with using just one instant messenger. You have a few contacts that you talk to on Messenger, a few on Google Talk, a handful on AIM, etc., and so it’s impossible to use just one. I’ve always wondered why the different services didn’t get their act together to offer a single service that worked with all of the other services, but they haven’t. Sure there’s Trillian, but you still have to sign in to all of the services that you use separately. Things might be about to change in the near future though. According to LiveSide, Microsoft has been able to get Windows Live Messenger 9 which is currently in private testing, to communicate with Google Talk.
Of course Google Talk and Messenger aren’t the only two services that people use, and so the team at Microsoft is working on a solution for incorporating AIM and ICQ too. Given that Windows Live Messenger 8 and Yahoo Messenger already work together, it would certainly be nice to see it working with other services as well. Wouldn’t it be great to open up one service that worked with all of them? We can expect to see Windows Live Messenger 9 sometime in late 08′ or early 09′ and now I can’t wait…
We should just use Jabber, I guess. However GTalk is based on it.
Well i will stick with kopete or pidgin, and use meebo just in case.
Exactly, if all the services used XMPP as a groundwork it would be excellent. Individual services could add their own special things (games, file transfer, group, voice etc.) but if Jabber were used then at least the basic text messaging would spread across all the networks. Unless M$ are actually collaborating with Google (which I doubt) then I’d guess they’re using their own XMPP transport servers, which Google are probably already using for the AIM compatibility and which already provide a link when people run private ones.
I’m really surprised at all of the interoperatability that has been going on. First Microsoft and Yahoo team up, then Google and AIM, and now this. I’m definitely liking where this is heading.
I read thru most of the article wondering which IM service you were calling simply “Messenger.” I thought could it be Y! Messenger, WinLive Messenger? By the end I realised it must be the latter. What’s w/ the vague naming?
Wow, I’m surprised at MS’s interoperability. But I’ll consider Live messenger only when they add H.264 or equivalent high quality conferencing and group audio-video chat.
Sweet! Will this also work with third-party MSN apps like Pidgin? I’ve had no luck adding Yahoo! buddies to my MSN contacts in Pidgin yet…
“Messenger” has always been MSN Messenger
I doubt that, considering that Pidgin supports the Yahoo! protocol, I don’t think the Pidgin Team would bother to reverse engineer such function for every protocol that is interoperable with another. Besides, I’m not sure, but I think that you don’t get all the functionality MSN has if you’re talking from WLM to a friend on Yahoo! Messenger. I run Miranda so I never bothered to find it by myself
I wonder if the next step will be IRC
Sorry about the vague naming … it was just me forgetting that there are other “messengers” with “messenger” in the name. I’ve used MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger for such a long time and have always just called it “messenger.” My mistake…
It’s nice that MS acknowledge the existence of other networks out there. But does this mean that I will (for instance) be able to use my hotmail account to communicate with people of the Gtalk network even if I don’t have a Gtalk account ? Or will I still need an account on both services in order for that interoperability to work ?