In the first deal of its kind among internet competitors Yahoo and MSN Instant Messaging (IM) users from India and 14 other countries will be able to invite and chat with each other beginning from 13th July 2006. These 15 countries account for over 80 per cent of MSN and Yahoo's joint user base of around 350 million. The other countries will be covered in a phased way since they have language issues with IMs (for instance, Japan) that need to be sorted out.

MSN has about 240 million users while Yahoo has approximately 110 million. In India, MSN and Yahoo jointly are said to account for over 70 per cent of all IM users. Some experts foresee that IM traffic will surpass email traffic over the next one year.

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