Yahoo, Microsoft almost on speaking terms

Like many people, I was excited by Wednesday's announcement that Yahoo and Microsoft were finally ready, at least with test versions, with instant- messaging programs that could talk with one another.

I arrived in the office Thursday eager to start chatting across networks. I had been really excited for this ever since the two announced plans for the link-up back in October.

It turned out there was more to getting up and running than I bargained for. First of all, I found it to be less than intuitive to get the right software on both ends. For Yahoo, I got a notification at home that new software was available, but after downloading it there, I got no similar notification at work, where I do most of my IM-ing. After some searching on both company's Web sites, I managed to get the right versions of both Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. (Only one program is needed, but I wanted to see how both halves had approached the issue).

To save others some work, Yahoo users should go here, download the latest software, opt-in to the beta, and log out and back into Yahoo Messenger. Microsoft users should go here.

But getting myself outfitted with the right software turned out to be less than half the battle. In order to talk with buddies on the other service, they too have to be using the latest software.

That poses several challenges. One, they have to know that they need new software. When attempting to add Yahoo buddies from Windows Live Messenger, my contacts at least got notices that they needed to upgrade their software. It took awhile, but eventually we were trading text messages.

Communicating with my MSN friends from Yahoo was more of a headache. Apparently my buddies aren't using the latest version, though. I was able to add them as contacts, but they appeared offline, even though they were logged in to the MSN network. Worse still, neither they nor I got any kind of notification. Microsoft says that's a glitch and the tech folks are working on it. It is day one of the beta, they note.

Even if that bug gets ironed out, I am still not likely to be able to talk with all my buddies via Yahoo Messenger. In part, that's because Microsoft doesn't have a Mac version of MSN Messenger that supports the new cross-talk feature. (Microsoft says it is evaluating whether to offer such a feature in its MSN Messenger for Mac program.)

Representatives of both Microsoft and Yahoo say they are pretty pleased with the level of interoperability they've achieved. And, both sides point out, it is beta software and is likely to get better over time. Indeed, some of the challenges getting up and running were just the hurdles of opting-in to the beta, which will become moot once the interoperability is part of the final product.

Now, maybe I'm naive, but I guess I thought it would be easier. Especially after nine months of waiting.