Several people were kind enough to inform me of some "big news" in IM (and yet another did as I was writing this)... Microsoft has announced interoperability with AIM and Yahoo in its next version of Live Communications Server (CNN Story). My reaction to this news is largely ho-hum, because I'm not sure what's really going on here. The article says that it was a feature highly demanded by businesses, but I guess I'm not sure why. It seems like opening yourself up to additional networks would just multiply the administration overhead, and increase the possibilities of security breaches. Not to mention the potential wasted time as employees could reach non-business users more easily, now on more services (like chatting with Aunt Gertrude instead of working). I can see it being a big deal if you work with another company and they are using a different system, but isn't that still more to set up, monitor, etc?
I have never considered Live Communications Server (LCS) a competitor to BitWise, so I don't find this announcement to be all that threatening. LCS it is in an entirely different league, catering to massive corporations that can afford its ridiculous price tag: $733 per server and $25 per user. If you want outside users to be able to use the system, you have to pay nearly $10,000 for an outside user license. BitWise is only $2 per user and makes no distinction between "outside" and "inside" users in terms of pricing. It's kind of like the difference between a small company buying a modest, small private plane versus buying a 747. Practical and affordable vs. impossible and overkill.
The real losers here are the companies that provide IM gateways, like IMlogic and FaceTime. With Microsoft now providing integration "out of the box," demand will be lower for the other services. Further, as long as the "public networks" carry a negative stigma for being insecure (unless you pay $10,000 for Microsoft), BitWise has a very attractive spot as an affordable, controlled IM system.
On the other hand, if I should be panicking, will someone please let me know? :)