Regardless of intention, Yahoo's management of its IM network preserves the network's exclusivity. Like Yahoo's service, other major messaging services such as America Online's AOL Instant Messenger and Microsoft's MSN Messenger are proprietary networks that cannot communicate with competing systems. People who have contacts on different IM services must launch multiple messaging clients to talk to everybody.
Historic battles between the Big Three of Internet services have been ugly. In 1999, AOL and Microsoft engaged in a public spat after MSN Messenger launched with the ability to chat with AIM users. AOL considered Microsoft's action a "hack" into their systems and blocked MSN.
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