Historically, IM has existed on closed and proprietary systems, with dedicated clients that can only connect to a single network. For many years users with accounts on multiple networks (say, AOL and MSN), would have to keep multiple programs open, which ate up system resources and cluttered desktops. By 2000 a handful of clients emerged that would allow users to manage multiple IM accounts from a single program. These stayed largely under the radar until 2002, when a client called Trillian hit 1 million downloads (and then jumped to 5 million six months later).

IM is also ripe for innovation, but developers have been hampered by a near-complete lack of cooperation from the major IM networks. Perhaps developers will take advantage of the growing number of networks that are open, adding new features that make them attractive to users still stuck on the old behemoths. Then Yahoo and Microsoft might be compelled to finally change - or perish.