1 und 1 (1 & 1), “world’s largest Web hosting provider by known servers”, which recently bought GMX (Germanys largest Webmail provider) and has a significant market share in the DSL retail market in Germany, added an instant messenger service.

The best: it’s not just “yet another IM service”, but just like Google, they have chosen the XMPP/Jabber protocol (“Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol”). So they can interoperate. I’ve successfully tried exchanging data between GMX and Amessage, which I’m using for my IM.

Configuration was trivial in Pidgin/Gaim, pick Jabber as protocol; username and server are just these two parts of your email address. The password is the same as for your GMX services. This is set up in a few seconds.

Hooray for open standards!