Yahoo gives IM ‘all new’ look | CNET News.com
Although Microsoft released then pulled v6.2 of MSN Messenger (expected early this week) Yahoo is jumping on the update bandwagon.
Personally I see the race to add more and more features into IM clients a kind of cold war arms race where each vendor (Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL) are trying to reach a point with one finds a feature or number of users that makes them the dominant one and then can set the standards for interoperability.
The reality is, though, I think that people use the IM client most of their friends and colleagues use. All my co-workers use MSN, so I do. I used to use Yahoo, but since none of my friends or co-workers do, I've stopped using that service.
I think as business become more dependant on IM for day to day business, IM clients with strong security (i.e. encryption) will win the day. The Enterprise IM client that interops with other vendors, will likely be the one to beat.