In what amounts to a meeting of the messaging services, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. recently revealed that Canadian users of their respective instant messaging (IM) software packages will soon be able to correspond across both platforms.

An interoperability feature between the latest iteration of MSN Messenger – dubbed Windows Live Messenger – and Yahoo Messenger with Voice is now in beta testing in Canada, in both official languages.

The new feature will mean that the 350 million users of both services combined worldwide will soon be able to not only send each other multimedia IM messages, but also see whether friends on both platforms are online or offline, use a range of emoticons, view offline messages, and more.

Interested IMers in Canada can sign up for the beta test software at ca.messenger.yahoo.com or ideas.live.com.
 
 

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