Buddies: MSN & Yahoo Messengers

They're now on each other's buddy lists. Microsoft and Yahoo announced they'll have their IM services interoperable (meaning MSN Messenger folk will actually be able to IM with friends using Yahoo Messenger) by June 2006, Good Morning Silicon Valley reports. AIM has dominated instant-messaging to date, with 51.5 million US users. This development puts the combined MSN and Yahoo services, with a total of about 50 million users, right in the running.