AOL today announced that it has formed a relationship with IBM to connect their dynamic instant messaging communities. Under the agreement, IBM Lotus Sametime users will be able to connect and communicate in real time with users of the AOL, AIM, ICQ and Apple iChat instant messaging services.

With today's announcement of Lotus Sametime 7.5, IBM plans to provide instant messaging customers with federated access to AOL's global instant messaging network as an embedded feature for each user. These customers will be able to exchange instant messages with the more than 70 million users of the AOL, AIM, ICQ and Apple iChat(TM) services around the world. MORE