Product details

For the last five years, America Online (AOL), Yahoo!, and Microsoft have been battling to grab market share for their instant messaging (IM) service. Each company has its own software and network to deliver the service, which allows users to write on-line, real-time text messages to other users on the same network. Although IM began as a small venture in 1996 by four Israeli engineers, it has ballooned into one of the largest means of on-line communication. The number of IM users has grown 30% faster in its first five years than that of e-mail when it was first launched. Today, almost half of all North American on-line households use some version of IM. Despite the large number of IM users, the three major providers - AOL, Yahoo!, and Microsoft - have not earned any significant profit from offering their services. Each firm offers its IM service for free and many questions remain as to how any company will one day capitalize on its millions of users. Some looked to the possibility of developing IM as a corporate technology tool, allowing co-workers to send messages securely to one another, and efforts were already underway to make this a reality. Firms have also made significant efforts to establish a common protocol for IM that would enable users to communicate across different networks. But competition has hampered progress, forcing analysts to wonder whether consumers will continue to tolerate using multiple IM programs to reach friends on different networks. As instant messaging moves forward, AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft will all have to resolve these issues.