Following close on the heels of the recent announcements from Yahoo regarding a retreat from enterprise IM, AOL is making similar moves. A press announcement with IMlogic (see America Online and IMlogic to Migrate AIM® Enterprise Gateway Customers to IMlogic Solutions), clearly indicates AOL is withdrawing from the niche:

"Our agreement to migrate the AIM Enterprise Gateway customers to IMlogic's AIM certified solutions reflects the evolution of the enterprise instant messaging market," said Edmund Fish, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Desktop Messaging, America Online, Inc. "Going forward, we will deliver AIM® Business Services directly to tens of millions of 'at work' AIM users while working with certified software partners like IMlogic to extend our reach in the enterprise IM market and meet the real-time communication needs of companies large and small."

As announced on June 10, 2004, America Online is delivering presence-enabled AIM Business Services (http://www.aimatwork.com) directly to the 'at work' AIM user through the AOL Instant Messenger client. The company is partnering with leading providers like IMlogic to support enterprise messaging applications and to weave 'presence' and the AIM Network into the applications that workers use every day.

"As instant messaging has become a mission-critical business tool, customers need an infrastructure solution that is enterprise-class for management, security and integration," said Francis deSouza, President and CEO of IMlogic. "We are extremely pleased to offer AIM Enterprise Gateway customers the opportunity to adopt our best-of-breed products as well as migration services to ensure a smooth transition."

In a nutshell, AOL is going back to being the network provider, and leaving the value-added services that make sense in a business context to be largely delivered by others, such as IMlogic and WebEx.