Regardless of how it is characterised, a familiar cycle is being accelerated by a confluence of seemingly disparate events--the momentum of Microsoft's federal antitrust case, contract negotiations with archrival AOL Time Warner, and the pending release of new operating system Windows XP. Instant messaging has emerged as the nexus this week as Microsoft prepares a test version of XP that will include a powerful new form of the communications software.
The software giant on Monday announced Windows Messenger, a text, chat, video, audio and telephony service that will be integrated with Windows XP. The feature has until now been a relatively muted part of the roughly US$200 million marketing blitz for the new operating system. But its new multimedia features and its central role in the planned integration of Microsoft's Internet properties elevate the software well beyond a vehicle for text communication.
Analysts said Microsoft views instant messaging--a key element of Windows Messenger--as glue for its new Internet services such as Passport and HailStorm. Such services promise to simplify Web surfing by giving people a single online identity and providing secure access to personal information such as credit card numbers with one click.
"Instant messaging is a potential platform for advertising and for things to piggyback onto it," said Gartner analyst David Smith. "It's also a carrier of the screen name, and Microsoft wants people to use Passport and HailStorm."
Microsoft has long used its ubiquitous Windows operating systems to distribute related products or effectively shut out competing technologies--thereby stifling innovation, in the view of opponents.
In the case of instant messaging, Microsoft has embraced America Online's popular services for sending short text messages and extended the communications technology to work directly with its operating system.
No one is suggesting that the final "E" will materialise anytime soon. But Microsoft is putting new pressure on AOL just as it is struggling to digest Time Warner.
Windows Messenger, due out in October with the release of Windows XP, is threatening to force AOL to make its IM networks interoperable with competing instant messaging services, an outcome that could seriously erode its market leadership.
"What Microsoft is doing here is leveraging its monopoly on the desktop and extending it onto the Internet," said Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America.
