AOL ope doors to AIM developer program, includes Mac OS X and Linux tools

Macworld is reporting that AOL (our parent company, by the way) has a ounced AIM developer tool su ort for Mac OS X and Linux, opening the doors for more interoperability to come from an even larger playing field. AOL launched this 'web 2.0-esque' Open AIM program last March, allowing 3rd party developers to create add-o and tie-i to the AIM network, with a healthy dose of around 45,000 developers already ho ing on board.

It'll be interesting to see how much comes out of this for the Mac OS X platform, as I'm willing to bet most Mac users who chat on AIM use iChat, and I'm not sure how open that a is from A le's standpoint. This is pure eculation, but I'm wondering if we could see some kind of a plugin push from A le with iChat in Leopard. E ecially since, as Macworld points out, the whole VoIP thing has everyone with an audio chat a firing on all cylinders, vying for market share.