From Time to Time: Nando_s in-depth look at the 20th century.

This is a story about messages. About 750 million a day. It_s a story about a piece of software called Instant Messenger. America Online owns it. Microsoft wants access to it. And therein lies the heart of this tale. AOL_s Instant Messenger (known by its initials, AIM) allows users to instantly send typed messages to other users. Some estimates show about 80 million people use it daily. Most of them run AIM constantly when they_re online (so they don_t miss any messages). This is the reason why AOL and Microsoft are battling over access to AIM users - constant use means you can be constantly sending users a stream of ads as well. The instant-message industry was running along tickity-boo until earlier this month, when the folks at AOL noticed something was happening. That something was the 800-pound gorilla of the high-tech industry, Microsoft. It seems that Microsoft, which has an instant-message software of its own, was trying to hack its way into the AOL system, so that its relatively small number of users could converse with the large numbers of users on AOL software. AOL didn_t like this for two reasons: First, by hacking into the AOL system, Microsoft was making AOL_s machines do all the work; and second, for all the business AOL does with Microsoft, they don_t like each other very much. Since the first Microsoft hack, the companies have been engaged in a running battle, with AOL blocking Microsoft users, and Microsoft countering with new ways around the blocks. Both companies appear to be using questionable tactics. An e-mail sent by a "third-party observer" to a well-known computer security expert claimed that AOL was exploiting a bug in AIM to keep Microsoft out. The e-mail was traced back to Microsoft and was probably sent by a Microsoft employee. On the other hand, there is evidence that AOL is using a bug to block out Microsoft users, in a tactic that could endanger the computers of anyone running AIM.