The two companies consider to link their IM networks. By doing this they will gain 44% of the market.

This situation puts much more pressure on AOL, which is the current leader. There were rumors that the companies will announce the deal today, but both Microsoft and Yahoo representatives were not available for comment. Although the purpose of the deal is not to compete with AOL, it’s to stand in front of new services like Skype that are getting more popular lately. Without a consolidated position, Microsoft and Yahoo might loose their users in front of these new solutions that have evolved to link consumers to other services beyond just chat.

Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL had previous discussions about inter-connecting their networks but there were no results.

Back to the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft, many skeptics believe that only Microsoft will benefit from this alliance, because if a user can get into the Yahoo IM network with Microsoft’s client which is embedded in Windows, there will be no interest in Yahoo’s application. On the other hand, Google hasn’t been reporting any news with its client, Google Talk.