An AOL-Microsoft mega-battle pops up over instant messages, and users are cut short

10/05/99

By Doug Bedell / The Dallas Morning News

An instant messaging conflict that erupted last month is as confusing to users as it is monumental to the future of Internet communications, experts say.

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Since July, consumers with the new Microsoft MSN Messenger service have been intermittently cut off from messaging America Online friends and business associates - even after entering valid passwords for AOL's own Instant Messenger, or AIM, service.

"It's just a frustrating situation," says Judy Margraves of Plano, an outspoken consumer advocate on newsgroups devoted to the technology. "I can never tell who's going to be available to what program on any given day of the week."

Instant messaging allows communication faster than e-mail but more personal than a chat room.

Two or more friends using compatible IM programs can connect instantly to exchange small talk much like they would in a phone conversation, as well as trade work files, graphics and other items of mutual interest. In a small software window on their desktops, users can also watch a list of their friends to see who is currently logged onto the Internet.

Behind the scenes since early July, software developers at Microsoft have been working overtime to find new paths to access America Online clients, posting program patches and updates almost daily.

Meanwhile, programmers at AOL, the world's largest Internet service provider, have been working just as hard to keep AIM clients inaccessible to non-AIM applications. They claim MSN Messenger - and similar Yahoo and Prodigy programs - have improperly "hacked" into their proprietary system.

This strange flurry of tweaks and countermeasures from the two huge corporations has grown to such proportions that the news service ZDNet (www.zdnet.com) has assigned it a standing headline. "Instant Mess: AOL on the spot." Discussion forums across the Internet, meanwhile, have lighted up with people taking sides in the electronic melee.

As online ZDNet columnist Charles Cooper contends, it's not easy to root for either side.

"The problem is that when two powerful, strong-willed companies are so given to smash-mouth negotiations, it's hard to believe anything fruitful will emerge any time soon," Mr. Cooper says. "And that means the poor schnook consumer will wind up the biggest loser of all."

Instant messaging started as an entertaining Internet novelty only three years ago. But evidence abounds that it has quickly arrived as a mainstream Web application holding a huge stake in the future.

The IM phenomenon

By all accounts, instant messaging is growing at an astronomical rate.

Mirabilis, which pioneered the field with ICQ (I Seek You) and recently was purchased by AOL, grew to 12 million users in less than two years, largely by word of mouth among teens and college students.

Today AIM and ICQ together, according to AOL, claim 63 million clients who send more than 750 million messages a day, although that figure includes multiple messages from single senders. Yahoo, Microsoft and Excite are among a host of companies who have recently sprung into the field, vying for position in the marketplace.

"Buddy lists" maintained by users can survey a vast array of associates to see who is online and available. Those lists, IM managers say, have been growing steadily. AOL estimates 30 percent of its clients ages 12 to 17 have built up lists numbering 20 to 50 people.

Although chatty adolescents were the first to widely adopt IM, the immediacy of the communication has gradually spread appeal to businesses, families, fast-moving executives and others in need of instant collaboration and information exchange.

Online communities of like interests have sprung up in Internet portals anchored by the program download centers. Beyond that, those with hearing and speech disabilities have adopted IMs as a primary communications tool, shirking teletypewriter, or TTY, phones on which they often racked up heavy charges for long-distance.

To industry analysts such as Rob Enderle of the Gigaweb Information Group, the conflict illustrates the urgent need for a standard that will allow all IM programs to interact freely.

"The lack of standards is the greatest impediment to allowing this technology to be all that it can," Mr. Enderle says. "The ultimate winner will be the consumer, who will enjoy an experience more effective and ubiquitous than current pagers and far less costly then cell phones."

Buddy lists on your TV?

Although the amount of IM traffic is already compelling, developers and analysts alike seem convinced that this form of Internet communication holds incredible potential.

One big reason is that the technology doesn't require a full-fledged computer to operate. Small, mobile, hand-held devices are being developed to help instant messaging take advantage of its quick nature.

Wireless Internet pagers are on the horizon, as are more specialized tools. With them, a stockbroker and customer theoretically will be able to quickly confer on a transaction, customers will call for cabs, sensors will report back vital signs from a sick relative's hospital room and retailers will send out notices when ordered merchandise is ready for pickup.

"Instant messaging says, 'This is about me right this second,' and that's a fundamentally new thing on the Net," says Dave Marvit, an employee of the Fujitsu Group, who co-chairs an Internet committee trying to develop a common language for all IM programs.

"I can say, 'Right now I'm looking to buy a stock at some price,' or 'Right now, I need a Japanese translator,' " Mr. Marvit says. "The Internet's not going to be just PCs on desktops anymore. It's going to be wireless and on all the time."

Mobile Insights, an information source for the mobile computing and data communications markets, estimates that the worldwide market for instant messaging will grow to 175 million users by 2002.

Some predict that instant messaging will morph into a "people browsing" service and that next-generation buddy lists could eventually be incorporated into TV set-top boxes, cellular and home phones.

The new Palm VII - a personal digital assistant, or PDA - is the first of a new breed of portable Internet devices that may provide a preview of what's to come.

"Instant messaging on these wireless-handled PCs and mobile phones will become as commonplace as voice mail in only a few years," says David Hayden, senior industry analyst for Mobile Insights.

Adds Jerry Michalski, president of the San Francisco consulting firm Sociate: "Five years from now, the interface to most cell phones and wireless PDAs will include a buddy list. These buddy lists will transform the way people communicate and help them to avoid the necessity of making real-time, two-way phone calls to handle simple communications."

AOL stands tough

Currently, AOL is still successfully blocking other IM programs from interacting with its clientele. Hard feelings abound.

Companies that have developed rival IM programs say they were simply using code publicly posted by AOL itself. AOL says that the code, since removed from Web pages, was intended to help programmers work on Unix-based AIM programs only. It was not supposed to help programs such as MSN Messenger access AIM clients, the company says.

Although AOL representatives have agreed to attend meetings on possible standards this month, the company continues to build on its base by entering agreements with others while excluding Microsoft.

In August, AOL added 2.5 million potential users to its ranks by striking IM agreements with the national ISPs MindSpring and EarthLink. It also partnered with longtime Microsoft rivals Apple and Novell.

And it has continued to add features, including a stock ticker, to its latest AIM version 3.0, while transforming the latest release of ICQ (ICQ99a) into a desktop communications portal with a calendar, search feature and virtual sticky notes.

New releases designed to use AOL's code for AIM client access, including Tribal Voice's Pow Wow (www.powwow.com), will be blocked just like Microsoft, AOL has said.

The company's posture has led some experts to predict the entire matter will wind up with Microsoft suing AOL, or vice versa.

"Currently, AOL's fight to delay the vendor independent standards effort is unprecedented," says Gigaweb's Mr. Enderle. "They have gone as far as to disconnect customers, including their own, from their service in an effort to prevent others from using their technology as a standard.

"As Microsoft has demonstrated, it generally is much more successful to embrace the effort and provide a better solution than to penalize users for using your technology."

AOL's efforts to retain exclusive IM access to its customers will ultimately hurt the company, Mr. Enderle predicts.

"Whoever the winner is, we expect AOL to lose," he says.

"The market seldom forgives a vendor that puts customers at risk. And the customer has a very, very long memory."

NOTES ON NETIQUETTE

Just because you're writing on the computer doesn't excuse you from good manners, says etiquette expert Letitia Baldrige. Following are some tips for proper etiquette during instant message chats:

Do: