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"Interoperability is not a technical discussion but a business one," said David Gee, Yahoo's international vice president of enterprise solutions.
More license fees from business users means more money for Yahoo and others to sink into interoperability, said Gee.
"Until the corporate user base for instant messaging grows and revenues start flowing in, IM software providers will not feel compelled to address it."
"We can't put a timeframe to solving the interoperability issue. The business model for such agreements hasn't been defined," he said.
According to market research firm IDC, about 65 million workers currently use IM products at work and this number is expected to surpass 255 million by 2005. Gartner too, has made a bold prediction that IM will overtake e-mail as the preferred mode of communication by 2006.
With the rising popularity, major IM players are now pushing corporate versions of the software, promising better security, control and accountability.
However, major issues stand in the way. In Asia, some companies CNETAsia spoke to do not endorse the use of instant messaging.
“Our corporate email service is already an efficient mode of communication,” said Chia Sin Sin, a spokeswoman from Singapore-based mobile operator StarHub. “Such instant messaging programs are predominantly used for personal reasons and therefore are not encouraged as part of best practices.”
In addition, there is the challenge of convincing businesses to pay for software that has traditionally been free. The enterprise edition of Yahoo Messenger (YM) is available in Asia at a per-user price of US$30 a year.
Businesses which commit to one IM client also risk losing touch with contacts using another. Cross-platform agreements between IM makers such as Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL do not exist. Gee came to Singapore to promote the regional launch of Yahoo's enterprise instant messaging software.
"We have about 29 million active consumer IM users worldwide and our strategy is to monetize that usage for the business community," Gee said.
"We have traffic logs which show the 1,000 companies with the greatest usage of our free messaging service today. We intend to talk to the CIOs, CEOs or IT decision-makers of these companies and offer them centralized control and administration of their existing Yahoo Messenger user base," he added.
In addition to the direct approach, Yahoo is also beefing up its distribution channels in Asia to reach out to small and medium businesses.
In Singapore, the company inked reseller agreements with Internet service provider Pacific Internet and India-based IT solutions firm Satyam Computer Services.
Gee said Yahoo plans to seek similar tie-ups in other key Asian markets, including Hong Kong, Korea and Australia.
Without disclosing specifics, Gee said Yahoo is also working with enterprise software providers to incorporate its IM client. In October last year, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm said it sealed software integration deals with BEA Systems, Novell, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Tibco.
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