Did AOL Shoot The Messenger?

from the strategic-mistakes dept

We've argued here before about whether or not AOL's decision not to allow cross communication between IM clients was a mistake. For most of the past two years, people have gone back and forth, but for the most part they felt that AIM was doing okay, and AOL had made the right decision. Now, it's beginning to look like a mistake. Microsoft is definitely gaining on them (a MS sponsored report says they have more users than AIM). Of course, the one thing the article doesn't point out is that if AIM had let MSN Messenger communicate with it from the beginning, the situation might be even worse for AOL right now.