Apple, AOL Join In Instant-Messaging Pact

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July 29, 1999 (12:00 AM EDT)

By Lee Copeland,

While turning its back on other service providers, America Online announced plans Thursday to create an instant-messaging product for Apple's Macintosh users.

Under the terms of the deal, Mac users willgain access to AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM) services. The project will let Mac users exchange instant messages with the 40 million AOL subscribers.

"AOL has built the biggest and best instant-messaging service in the world," said Steve Jobs, interim CEO of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple, in a statement. "We're partnering with AOL to create instant-messaging products that will further enhance the Internet experience for Macintosh customers."

"We are thrilled to add Apple to our growing list of AIM partners and look forward to working with them to ensure the smooth and efficient integration of their customers into the global instant-messaging community in a seamless and secure way," said Bob Pittman, president and chief operating officer at AOL, in Dulles, Va.

For the time being, AIM integration is open only to AOL partners. A controversy has emerged in recent weeks over incompatibility problems between a number of ISPs and AOL.

AOL is accused of blocking instant messages from competing companies, such as Microsoft and Prodigy. AOL signed a deal with Lotus in January to permit instant messaging between Lotus and AOL users.

No standards-based interface or protocol has been ratified to ease integration between different instant-messaging services, observers said. The Internet Engineering Task Force is working to establish a standard protocol for instant messaging, though AOL is not a participating member of the group.

AIM service registration doubled in the past six months to more than 25 million registrants, AOL executives said. The company said it estimates more than 430 million instant messages are sent per day.