America Online Inc. announced that it is launching an industrywide mobile developer program for its instant-messaging services.
As flagship members, LG Electronics, Motorola Inc., Samsung Telecommunications America and Siemens AG will work to develop, test and distribute licensed AIM clients for mobile devices. The program looks to leverage the open standards of the Open Mobile Alliance, an association of 300 companies founded two years ago to facilitate wireless interoperability.
Interoperability has long been an issue in the world of mobile IM, with AOL, MSN and Yahoo! all running their services on their proprietary protocols. AOL Mobile executive director Doug Gardner said the program is another step toward allowing IM users to communicate across devices, service providers, networks or locations.
In July, Microsoft Inc. forged an agreement with Yahoo and AOL to allow messages and presence information to move between Microsoft’s forthcoming Office Live Communications Server 2005 and the big three IM providers. The announcement was hailed as a milestone in the effort to push IM into the enterprise arena.
The developer program will help create a standard to allow manufacturers to include IM technology on handsets more easily. Gardner said it’s possible that nearly every new handset produced by the end of next year could be IM-ready, which could spark a dramatic uptake in use of the messaging.
AOL first entered the mobile IM market in 2001, pre-installing their IM client on a Nokia Corp. handset on T-Mobile USA Inc.’s network.
“The usage we saw on that product was really fantastic,” Gardner said. “Folks who were scrolling through the menu recognized AOL, signed on, and got addicted to the service. We learned that (more customers will use it) if you get the product pre-installed.”
