Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, announced recently that by the end of tax season their legacy instant messenger system, MSN Messenger (now called Windows Live), will be shutdown permanently. Anyone with a Windows Live/MSN Messenger account will be automatically converted to a Skype account (and anyone with both, the accounts will be merged). The impending doom date is April 15th (originally set for early March).
In part, I’m not terribly surprised. Microsoft loves to force their products down everyone’s throats. I don’t have a Skype account, I’ve never been a big fan of it even before M$ bought it. I always found FaceTime to be a better product. The problem is, I don’t use the MSN client, I use a third party client that allows me to connect to multiple messenger clients. So far there are no indications that M$ will make Skype compatible with third party client apps. If this is the case then I will have to give up using that account. I have no need to use more than one client and instead of being forced to use their “crap-tastic” bastardization of an already inferior product, I’d rather just stop using it.
We are still a little more then six weeks away from the change so hopefully someone in their marketing department grows a brain and realizes they could be ostracizing a potentially large portion of their user base.
/cheers