Kool IM Launches to Battle Meebo
Michigan based Kool IM, an Ajax web chat service that compares to Meebo and eBuddy, launched today. — These services are very popular, particularly with employees and students who are unable to download and use normal IM clients on their computers.
Context & Ripple Effects
Meebo entered this market with funding and a clear pitch: an Ajax take on the Trillian multi-network client, a few million dollars in the bank as of late 2005. eBuddy is already serving the same need, so Kool IM is launching into a category that now has at least three named players.
The shared customer is defined by constraint rather than preference: employees and students whose networks block downloadable IM clients, making the browser the only legal endpoint. That constraint is the whole addressable market, and it is why a Michigan two-person-scale launch can even register against funded incumbents.
First-order effects
- Meebo and eBuddy immediately face a third competitor chasing the same network-restricted user base, where switching costs between web clients are near zero.
- Kool IM must win users on client quality alone since it launches with no disclosed funding or distribution advantage over its rivals.
Second-order effects
- With core multi-network chat commoditized across Meebo, eBuddy, and now Kool IM, the funded incumbents are pushed to differentiate on features beyond plain messaging to justify their capital.
- IT administrators and schools — the gatekeepers creating this market by blocking desktop clients — gain nothing from any of the services, meaning the arms race stays focused on evading detection rather than serving buyers.
Third-order effects
- If browser-delivered apps keep substituting for installable software wherever administrators restrict installs, enterprise IT policy becomes a product-distribution channel in itself — determining which consumer software categories migrate to the web.
- A field of near-identical Ajax chat clients points toward consolidation or platform expansion, since undifferentiated aggregators rarely all survive once the underlying networks change their terms.
The trend: Consumer software is migrating into the browser not because the web is better but because locked-down networks make it the only channel — turning IT restrictions into a market-maker for Ajax startups.