Sadly, the title to this post is identical to the title of a PCWorld article published in 2001. Although many people thought that we were close to IM interoperability back then, we still aren’t there even in 2008. Why not?

Before I answer that, and before I explain why I believe that we’re finally close, let’s cover a little bit of background.

What is IM interoperability?

IM interoperability is the ability to send or receive an IM, or use other IM features such as online status, across different IM networks.

IM is the only important communication service that isn’t yet interoperable. For example, an AIM (AOL) user can’t IM a Yahoo! user, and an MSN Messenger user can’t IM or call a Skype user (or even add that user to their buddy list).

Other communication networks that are interoperable include telephone and email. For example, you can call anybody on any cellular or landline network simply by dialing a number. Similarly, you can now (but not always in the past) use AOL to email a Yahoo user, or Hotmail to email a friend at their work address. You can even add your friend’s T-Mobile phone number to your AT&T phonebook, her Yahoo! email to your AOL address book, and so on.

You can’t do any of these things with your IM account. We deserve better, and the open standards for doing so have existed for many years.

This is not IM interoperability

In 2006, Yahoo! and MSN started interoperating with each other. So you can add a Yahoo! user to your MSN contact list and send an IM. But you can’t do the same with an AIM, Skype, Google Talk or other IM user. So Yahoo! and MSN are interoperating, but only in a closed way between their two systems. That’s not interoperability in the manner that telephone and email networks interoperate.

In 2007, Google Talk started offering access to AIM. But Google Talk and AIM aren’t interoperating at all — Google Talk merely allows you to sign in to Google Talk with your Google ID and, at the same time, sign in to AIM with your AIM ID. It’s essentially just like running AIM and Google Talk messengers on your computer at the same time. That’s the same approach taken by iChat (separate sign-in for AIM and Jabber networks such as Google Talk), Trillian, Meebo and other popular services that allow you to sign in to multiple IM services at the same time.

While these services are useful, I don’t think there’s any debate that much more innovation would happen if open standards were adopted.

Why hasn’t everyone embraced interoperability?

In short, the big guys (AIM, MSN and Yahoo!) don’t want to play with anyone new (like Google Talk, Skype or countless other innovators).

The big IM services depend on the “network effect” to attract new users to their already large user base, and to in turn monetize those users by selling advertisements. They’re afraid that if they share their users, they might lose their users completely.

The risk is perhaps real, but then again, these same companies will tell you that email interoperability was good for everyone. Letting everyone email each other made the email pie bigger, with plenty of pie (users and page views) for everyone to share. The same holds true for IM.

So why do I think it’s coming soon?

Well, for starters, not because of Rogomo (although in the spirit of full disclosure, it would be very beneficial to Rogomo).

I think it’s coming soon for one reason: Yahoo! is going to be acquired. Whether it merges with AOL or is acquired by Microsoft, I believe that the inevitable anti-trust review will finally bring about IM interoperability based on open standards. The government will at last have an excuse to break the IM monopoly. And if that happens, it won’t be the first time the government has taken action on this issue — when AOL and Time Warner merged in 2001, they were forced to agree to not launch video chat without first interoperating with other services (an agreement unfortunately waived years later).

So, my guess is that, although we’ve (needlessly) been waiting for IM interoperability for the past 7 years, we’re not going to be waiting too much longer. And I also think that when IM interoperability finally happens, it will truly revolutionize communication.

What do you think? Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments.