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The trial service lets users of Windows Live Messenger, the successor to MSN Messenger connect to Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, in preparation for the worldwide launch of what will be the world's largest consumer IM community, with close to 350 million accounts.

'This first-of-its-kind interoperability between consumer IM leaders Microsoft and Yahoo! gives our customers tremendous control, convenience and freedom in their Web communication experiences with Windows Live,' said Blake Irving, corporate vice president, Windows Live Platform at Microsoft.

Brad Garlinghouse, senior vice president of Communications, Community and Front Doors, Yahoo! , added that interoperability has consistently topped users' wish lists.

'Through the collaborative efforts between Yahoo! and Microsoft we are delighted to provide our combined

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global users with the ultimate IM experience,' he said. 'A new era for staying connected with friends and family is here, and the bridge between Yahoo!'s and Microsoft's IM communities is bringing people around the world closer together.'

To apply to join the beta programme, which will be available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the UK and the US, Yahoo! users should got to at messenger.yahoo.com and MSN users toideas.live.com.

AOL and Google have held exploratory talks about the possibility of interoperability between their respective AIM and Talk instant messaging services, which are already compatible with other services. Apple's iChat, for instance, is based on AIM , while Google is conversant with any client based on the Jabber/XMPP protocol.

AOL currently has the most popular service in the US according to Nielsen//NetRatings with 47.2 million users in June 2006, followed by 28 million for Microsoft and 22.5 million for Yahoo!. However Microsoft and Yahoo! dispute these figures, pointing as comScore's global statistics which give them a combined user base of 282 million against just 34 million for AOL.