Here you see why there needs to be connectivity agreements between AOL and MSN. This is what I mean about next-generation phone companies. This is what AOL, MSN and Yahoo have in their hands and have not fully grasped.
How are they going to figure out the business of connecting their IM services?
It's fair to assume that one possibility among [AOL, MSN and Yahoo] could be that for each person who connects one service to another, they charge each other x cents per user per month or per minute. So it is like compensation between banks when you write cheques. You can imagine the same kind of clearing mechanism being built for compensating each other.
Which of the big three are pushing for this to happen?
None are pushing it among themselves. I know AOL and MSN are pushing very hard to get business-to-consumer connectivity agreements in place. Yahoo is setting up a programme for connectivity, but it's not widely publicised. To the best of my knowledge, none of them are trying to do anything among themselves, the reason being they are still trying to understand the potential for business that they can drive from user base.
Reuters Messenger is based on Microsoft's Office Live Communications Server, yet you struck a deal with AOL. Is Reuters the testing ground for AOL and Microsoft to interoperate?
It's an earlier version of Office Live Communications Server that Microsoft released back in August 2002. It's been functionally tailored to the needs of Reuters Messaging service.
10%
8%
