iChat, Adium, & Messenger

My wife recently got our first iMac. Since she already had people who
shared Windows Messenger with her, she installed it only to discover
that it doesn't have the capability that the Windows version has (for
instance, it won't use her camera).

Are the various chat products all mutually exclusive? If someone is
using one product, can they contact and share games etc with people
using other products?

Howard Brazee wrote:
> My wife recently got our first iMac. Since she already had people who
> shared Windows Messenger with her, she installed it only to discover
> that it doesn't have the capability that the Windows version has (for
> instance, it won't use her camera).
>
> Are the various chat products all mutually exclusive? If someone is
> using one product, can they contact and share games etc with people
> using other products?

Generally, yes and no respectively.

There is a free Windows Messenger-compatible chat app for OSX that
supposedly supports video chat, you might give it a go:
http://www.amsn-project.net/

The latest Yahoo Messenger client also supports video chat with Windows
Yahoo Messenger users:
http://messenger.yahoo.com/mac.php

And of course, iChat supports video chat with Windows AIM users, in
theory. Note that I don't have a webcam though, so haven't actually
tested any of these apps myself.