I remember after reading a news article about the "merging" of the two widely used instant messengers, MSN Messenger (now Windows Live Messenger) and Yahoo! Messenger, I was ecstatic. I thought to myself, Now this is inter-connectivity and that, they should have had thought of this a long time ago. Even though both big name dot coms are being adamant in their campaigns to make their interoperability plans a reality, it seems that a big hurdle is blocking the way.

According to reports, Microsoft is still in limbo, whether to include the Mac version of Windows Live Messenger in the party. This news doesn't really come as a big shock to us of course. But, quite frankly, the whole purpose of this so-called merge, is to keep in touch with your friends and relatives from wherever they are in the world. And in my humble opinion, Microsoft is losing touch of that big picture.

We have been covering the Adium X for quite some time now. It has been mentioned as one of the top 10 free Mac Apps around and it has became a factor on why some people choose to switch to Mac. Anyways, the people behind Adium has released a new beta version -- the Adium X 1.0b1, which is all for the improvement of communication and instant messaging.

In case you are in the dark about Adium, it is a multi-chat account client with tons of customizable options, which is such a joy if you IM a lot. This one can connect to MSN Messenger, AIM, Jabber, Yahoo and the likes. With that said, if you have this app installed in your Mac, you won't have to travel from one window to another since this baby gets you covered.

Before you download this one the Adium guys just want to remind you that "backing up a copy of the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Adium 2.0/ before using betas or alphas is probably a good idea." Here are some things that are new in this version:

* Major AIM, ICQ and .Mac improvements. This includes working File Transfer, and faster sign on.
* Improvements to the default look and feel of Adium.
* iTunes integration is much faster, and updates as soon as the song changes.
* Added global user profile and buddy icon settings. (Personal Preferences)
* General Account improvements. Accounts can now be disabled when not in in use, and friends can now sign on from your Adium without saving their information.
* Added an Xtras manager to better handle browsing and removing Xtras.
* Major improvements in privacy settings.
* Redesigned Previous Chat (Log) Viewer
* Requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later (Universal Binary)

Since this is still a beta version, there are still some issues in v1.0b1. The bugs list includes some problems receiving some ICQ messages and an irregular crash on mac OS X 10.3.9 in the log viewer. This latest version also has a large download size, but it's all for the good - size is due to the inclusion of debugging info.

Download: [Adium X 1.0b1]