GAIM and .NET

The problem with AOL going after GAIM isn't that GAIM has a right to keep their name. It was always a bad idea for GAIM to use AIM in the name: of course AOL was going to get pissed. The problem is that alienating third-party developers is exactly the wrong thing for AOL to do, because it creates an opening for Microsoft.

Microsoft is working hard to netscape AOL; i.e. to take the vast majority of the IM market away, leaving AIM a distant #2. What Microsoft gets that AOL doesn't is that the user ID database and the IM message stream can be put to good use by applications aside from IM. The only thing really stopping Microsoft from taking over the presence and identity markets and reselling access to third party developers is AOL.

First panel of imaginary cartoon: fat kid with big lolly. Second panel: fatter kid bops fat kid over the head and takes the lolly. third panel: fatter kid sells licks to all the runts on the playground.

What AOL thinks it needs to do is to keep Microsoft away from its assets. What AOL really needs to do is to give away its assets -- let everybody who wants to to access the AIM presence and identity services -- because that is the only way to preserve AIM's marketshare. This doesn't have to be profitless: Gracenote's model of charging a per-user fee to commercial projects and nothing at all to non-commercial projects would probably work for AOL.

First panel: fat kid with big lolly. Second panel: fat kid sells licks to all the runts on the playground. Third panel: fatter kid tries to bop fat kid over the head, but can't get through all the runts crowded around for licks.

From time to time AOL has realized this, which is why things like GAIM exist: at one point AOL released an open protocol to access AIM, as well as a GPL'd client with which to do it, thereby encouraging open source developers to build compatible clients. But AOL having what are at heart feudal social values, it also thinks that it needs to keep AIM under tight control.

AOL is veering back and forth between trying to protect its ISP business, which is held up by AIM, and trying to protect AIM. If users can get AIM without AOL, the thinking goes, why would they use AOL as their ISP? That's not an easy problem, but they have to find a solution that doesn't involve closing AIM, because IM users are going to switch to MS Messenger otherwise. Either AIM opens up or it goes away. The old days are gone.

Times are changing whether Time-Warner likes it or not. AOL needs to get software vendors to adopt, and hence protect, its presence stream and identity database. If AOL doesn't find a way to create revenues from an open AIM, even to the degree of licensing it to Microsoft, Microsoft is going to take the IM market away.

This is why going after GAIM is such a bad idea: AOL should be giving it a medal instead.

Thoughts?