Bridging the divide....

.... between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger :-)

I mentioned this a while back and now it’s finally going into beta.  For anyone running Live Communication Server 2005 with Public IM Connectivity enabled then this isn’t going to be very exciting,  but for those that only currently have Windows Live Messenger,  this really should be of interest.

Over the years,  people have chosen to either go with Windows Live Messenger,  AOL messenger or Yahoo Messenger.  Sometimes this has been based on who their ISP is but most of the time it’s based on where their friends currently have their IM accounts.  For those with lots of friends (I only have Windows Live messenger - what does that say about me?),  this has meant that they have had to sign into multiple IM accounts using either separate IM clients or multi-stack clients like Trillian.

Well,  it looks as if things are about to get a little bit better as Yahoo and MSN are finally starting to beta test the interoperability between the two networks.  Its beta for now and you have to sign up here but eventually it will be available to anyone on either Yahoo or Windows Live Messenger.

All I need to do now is find someone on Yahoo Messenger to test it with :-)

UPDATE - In order for this to work both the Windows Live Messenger user and the Yahoo Messenger user have to a) sign up for the beta b) download a new client. 

Yahoo Messenger people,  the beta signup page is here along with the client.

Windows Live Messenger people,  the signup page is here,  when you sign out and in again it will download the new client