TerryP, I agree that IM interoperability can and should be implemented. You cite e-mail, which is a good example; back when electronic mail first came about, there were several different implementations of it, and it took gateways to move them from one system to another. I remember typing in a "%" symbol between the destination username and hostname, as well as the routing info. This was going from the University of Pittsburgh, through Carnegie Mellon, to Penn State, IIRC. (Wow, 20+ years sure does cloud the memory. :-D)
Anyway, my point is that until some group comes up with a standard, or a de-facto standard emerges for the various IM protocols, we'll be stuck with several different clients that don't "talk to each other."
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