Working with Microsoft would give AOL a greater push into the instant messaging market for businesses, which it, MSN and Yahoo have been making strides in recently, analysts said.
Microsoft's recent plans to ship its new real-time communications (RTC) product as an adjunct to its Windows Server 2003 may have caused AOL to consider working with its archrival, said IDC's Robert Mahowald, research manager at IDC.
"They just announced that people who are users of Microsoft Exchange will get RTC for free so that means 70 million users worldwide could have it on their desktop," Mahowald said.
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