Leaders throughout the industry have been calling for AOL's participation in the standards effort for a very long time, well over a year. We need AOL to genuinely step-up so the compromises can begin. Remember this is not about AOL and Microsoft. It is about a much broader issue of the industry calling on AOL's support of industry standards in this area and their agreement to stop blocking non-AOL clients in the meantime. We hope that they will join with the IETF and commit to moving the IMPP proposal forward to provide interoperability for consumers.
People can choose which instant messaging service they'd like to use as the default.
Setting MSN Messenger as the default will log people into both services. AOL says it's willing to work out deals with partners. As I understand what AOL is doing here, this is not what is best for customers. The right thing to do for consumers is to work together as an industry with the IETF to quickly develop, finalize and support the IMPP standard. That is wrong.