At Shaw Pittman, a large multinational law firm, its 400 attorneys use software from Lotus to consult with each other and clients. They even use it during conference calls between the firm's clients and opposing parties. Partner Jim Alberg says the software lets him, in effect, slip notes under the table to his clients on a call even when they are in different cities. "It might be a hint about a negotiation, or 'I can't believe how stupid this guy is,'" Alberg adds.
But if he wants to send an instant message to co-counsel at another firm, Alberg's out of luck unless the colleague uses the same service.
More than 53 million people in the United States used free instant messaging from home in January, while about 11 million sent messages from work. (These numbers include some double counting of people who use more than one messaging service, according to market research firm Media Metrix.)
So pressing is the need to standardize instant messaging that former Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard, who stepped down in January, abandoned his long-held position that the government should refrain from regulating the Internet. "I think it's going to force policymakers to think differently about this mantra that we've all been saying - hands off the Internet," he says.
The FCC's new chairman, Michael Powell, is unlikely to heed that advice, though. Powell has yet to comment on instant messaging, but he has already expressed strong skepticism about imposing government rules on free markets. "I have no confidence that either I, personally, or this institution has the foresight and the understanding to be sufficiently accurate in its predictions about how technology or markets are going to unfold to actually try to participate in engineering where they go," Powell told reporters recently in his first public statement since becoming FCC chief. Powell's bear hug of the free market surprised some consumer groups, which expected he would continue the moderate approach he took as an FCC commissioner.
That's good news for America Online, which operates the largest instant-messaging service and which has long refused to allow messages to flow between its subscribers and those of most competing services. When the FCC approved AOL's merger with Time (AOL) Warner in January, the commission allowed the company to continue to block users of other services. Only if AOL Time Warner (AOL) puts multimedia content (like a CNN video feed) on instant messaging must AOL open the service to competitors.
For the time being, AOL Time Warner's competitors aren't counting on the government to set standards for instant messaging. "The FCC would take 18 months, and antitrust is very slow, too. Neither one of those will be very quick in forcing this company to play nice," says a lobbyist for one of AOL's competitors who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
America Online executives have pledged to open their service once security standards are set. But the competition, including ATT (T), Microsoft and Yahoo, has banded together to establish industrywide standards that could push AOL to act sooner rather than later. Once the leading non-AOL services allow message exchange, they hope the pressure on AOL will prove irresistible.
