Microsoft Corp issued various new builds of its MSN Messenger product over the weekend, including at least two on Monday before we lost count, with America Online Inc blocking each new build within hours. When we stopped checking on Monday night, Microsoft had reached its sixth build (1.0.0.871) and had again been blocked. It said it would continue to re-implement the product. Meanwhile Prodigy Inc, which was also blocked by AOL from interoperating with its AIM messaging tool, called for a meeting of companies to agree on a standard. And AT&T Co, which claims to have 18m instant messaging users through its IM Here service, using technology from Tribal Voice Inc, issued a statement saying that AOL’s stance was hypocritical and antithetical to the very ethos of the internet. AOL’s true agenda is control, said AT&T, throwing in the somewhat unrelated comment that AOL’s broadband strategy has little to do with speeding deployment and everything to do with extending their current narrowband dominance to include high-speed access as well.
