The new version of Tecent Messenger will allow email addresses as user IDs, similar to the system MSN Messenger uses, China Business News reports. Tecent confirmed that any email address will be able to be used with the Messenger program, not just those registered with the company's QQ service. Industry rumors speculated that if Tecent Messenger allowed Hotmail users to use their address as a TM ID, they would be able to communicate with other users of Microsoft's MSN Messenger software. However, Tecent CTO Xiong Minghua said that they company was not pursuing interoperability, and a vice president said that it was not possible with current TM technology.Tecent has 400 million users registered with its QQ instant messenger service, but is threatened by last year's union between Yahoo and MSN, bringing Microsoft's total userbase to 275 million. Tecent Messenger was developed in 2004 as an alternative to QQ aimed at business customers communicating with clients. It supports 200 clients, while MSN supports up to 500, so it is understandable that Tecent is hesitant to start a product rivalry.Link: http://dycj.ynet.com/article.jsp?oid=7900005