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Tribal Voice Breaks Through Chat Barriers

New software lets AT&T, AOL, and Microsoft instant messaging users talk to one another.

By Rebecca Sykes, IDG News   

Users of AT&T WorldNet Service's IM Here instant messaging, America Online's Instant Messaging (AIM), and Microsoft's MSN Messenger Service can message each other by downloading for free the latest version of AT&T's IM Here, according to AT&T and Tribal Voice.

Tribal Voice's PowWow technology is behind the interoperability, according to Beth Nagengast, product manager for instant messaging at Tribal Voice. Previously, a user of, say, AIM could message an AT&T WorldNet IM Here user, but the AIM user would have to have a copy of IM Here on his or her hard drive and have a separate IM Here buddy list, Nagengast says.

"It's really kind of crazy when you think about it, but that's what instant messenger users are going through right now," Nagengast says. "That's the problem we're solving with this new product."

The Internet Engineering Task Force is working on an instant messaging protocol, but in the meantime Tribal Voice is pitching its PowWow code as a workable common standard.

The download lets IM Here users pull MSN Messenger and AIM users into the IM Here buddy list at the click of a button, Nagengast says. The download is available to MSN Messenger and AIM users as well, she says.

Users of other messaging services will soon be accessible through a single buddy list as well, either because their messaging services are based on Tribal Voice's PowWow code or because Tribal Voice has struck a deal with them to interoperate. AltaVista will announce an instant messaging service based on PowWow in January, according to Nagengast. On the interoperability front, Tribal Voice is engaged in high-level talks with Yahoo and others, though nothing has been decided, she says.

"We are not working on any code at this point, but we would like to," Nagengast says.