Is Aol S Aim Service On The Chopping Block

The New York Times says AOL is laying off a modest 100 employees, which is not surprising news for a company that is changing its whole model of business. One particular area, however, caught my eye:

That does n0t sound like a business with a future. Only “support staff” means no development/security/improvements…or future.

AIM, through iChat/Adium/Messages on Mac and Verbs/etc on iOS, is still an important service that I use. I still have a network of contacts that I communicate with almost exclusively through AIM.

I have been passively trying to migrate those contacts either to iMessage or Google Talk. However, it sounds like I should hurry.