MSN to be shut down!

[Mojo]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20222998

Microsoft has announced it intends to "retire" its instant message chat tool and replace it with Skype's messaging tool.

The news comes 18 months after the software giant announced it was paying $8.5bn (£5.3bn) for the communications software developer.

Microsoft said Windows Live Messenger (WLM) would be turned off by March 2013 worldwide, with the exception of China.

It reflects the firm's determination to focus its efforts on Skype.

WLM launched in 1999 when it was known as MSN Messenger. Over time, photo delivery, video calls and games were added to the package's text-based messages.

Colloquially known as just ''MSN'' by many, I'm sad to see it go. I use it to keep in touch with loads of other forum members and I know it's a very useful tool so sad to see it close down, particularly when it works very efficiently for non-video chat. Certainly I remember in pre-Facebook/mySpace days how great it was to use and keep in touch.

 

[Ivo]

I've been using MSN (albeit not that often of late before a certain few on here suggest otherwise ) since I was about 12 so to see Microsoft withdraw it is massively surprising. Being able to play Minesweeper and the like over the Internet has been a lot of fun, especially when it comes to destroying my brother! I will be very sorry to see it go...

Will there be any other means of playing games like that? Ideally without resorting to Facebook?

EDIT: On a rather sad and ironic note, in relation to this thread I've just had my first instance of pressing Backspace generating a Google Ad of some sort - which mentioned MSN

 

[tigerroar]

It hasn't been the same since hey got rid of MS Comic Chat!

 

[SS4]

It's pretty important to make the distinction between the client (WLM) and the protocol (MSN) IMO. Hopefully they'll continue to keep the protocol thus letting third parties connect.

Ultimately I'm hoping it'll mean that my stick-in-the-mud friends will finally switch to a better protocol. Does anyone know a good free (as in speech) protocol? IIRC Jabber is one.

 

[Class172]

It is a shame that MSN is to be discontinued; like others I have used it to keep in touch with other forum members. We will have to find a replacement protocol - I don't want to use facebook chat.

 

[ryan125hst]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20222998

I'm sad to see it go.

So am I. I have never used it myself, but it was my first experience of social media when I was visiting my cousin. I was probably only about 10 at the time, possibly younger. She was talking to her friends and showed me messenger and the video chat.

I never bothered with anything until last year when I was leaving school and decided to get Facebook so I can keep in touch with everyone. I don't see a problem with it (other than the fact that it often crashes).

 

[chris89]

Will be sad to see WLM going overal.

But for me i rarely if ever use it now, especially after getting girlfriend to use steam chat, xfire or skype. All other friends mostly use Steam or Xfire with some on Skype.

Chris

 

[Donny Dave]

Xfire

That still going? hock:

 

[ATW Alex 101]

I noticed this earlier today, I could see it coming though. I don't think the like of Facebook, Bebo Twitter etc helped

I used to use MSN a lot when I was a little crap at the age of 8/9, at that time it was "cool" to have MSN. Facebook came to our attention and then after that Facebook was the new craze.

I remember the days years ago when I used to log in and loads of people were online, now it lays very dormant when I go in to check my emails.

 

[chris89]

That still going? hock:

Supprisingly so honestly.

Half the games though i play it is now broken so i run them through steam or are steam games for its messenger service.

But think that may be due to my MSI GPU overlay that i got with the graphics card i have, causing a conflict.

Chris

 

[SS4]

I noticed this earlier today, I could see it coming though. I don't think the like of Facebook, Bebo Twitter etc helped

I used to use MSN a lot when I was a little crap at the age of 8/9, at that time it was "cool" to have MSN. Facebook came to our attention and then after that Facebook was the new craze.

I remember the days years ago when I used to log in and loads of people were online, now it lays very dormant when I go in to check my emails.

Facebook and it's [WLM's] successor Skype I suspect did most of the damage. IM is a more efficient tool when both of you are online but becomes practically useless when only one person is on and it's only really been in the last twelve months or so that privacy (or lack thereof) on Facebook has hit the headlines.

 

[lemonic]

I am not surprised at the news. Skype is growing in popularity and it makes sense for Microsoft to concentrate their efforts on that. After all, Skype is basically the same as Messenger.

I will miss the games and the thing I like about Messenger is it immediately tells me if I have a new e-mail, which is unfortunately something that isn't on Skype. Of course, in Windows 8, you can get notifications of new e-mails in new ways, but I don't think there is another way in Windows 7 (unless I was to use Outlook I suppose).

 

[90019]

Reading further into it elsewhere, it appears that you will be able to log in to Skype using your MSN details and it will migrate your friends list across from one to the other.

How true that is, I don't know, but I certainly hope it'll be the case.

 

[maniacmartin]

I'm glad to see the back of it.

It used to be OK a good few years ago, but then Microsoft went crazy adding silly features that increased it's disk and RAM usage and made its interface overly confusing. Each successive version got more bloated, took longer to sign in and made the contact list harder to find. Add to that that its a proprietary protocol that's had some backwards-incompatible changes that have needed lots of reverse engineering to work on Linux.

Now that Microsoft own Skype, which is currently more in fashion, cleaner interface and multi-platform I can see why they're concentrating their efforts there.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Not surprising considering MS own skype.

It is worth noting that:

1 - The newest version of Skype allows you to link your Microsoft account with the skype account, and then allows you to chat to your WLM contacts when signed into skype. It works quite well too.

2 - There is a difference between the protocol and the application (as SS4 said). Microsoft have actually been moving Skype IM's over to the MSN backend recently, so I doubt the protocol is going to be killed. Just the client.

 

[Temple Meads]

It was a good thing in it's day, but Skype is generally better, although I use Facebook chat unless the person I'm talking to only has Skype and not FB.

 

[bronzeonion]

I'm quite annoyed about this really, nothing still matches Messengers ability to have a purely text based chat with someone. Custom emoticons, imageshare, file exchanges are all a feature on msn that are brilliant. A very stupid thing to do on Microsofts half

 

[Nick W]

I have no idea why people are so upset. MSN messenger was a late entrant to the messenger scene and managed to dominate the market share despite better protocols because of Microsoft's anti-competitive (and anti-innovative) practices.

It's a shame that when a better messenger did manage to make serious gains on Microsoft's market share (ie Skype), it was taken over by Microsoft. Nevertheless, all features that Microsoft thinks you should have from Windows Live Messenger (and no more) will be available in Skype.

 

[SS4]

I have no idea why people are so upset. MSN messenger was a late entrant to the messenger scene and managed to dominate the market share despite better protocols because of Microsoft's anti-competitive (and anti-innovative) practices.

It's a shame that when a better messenger did manage to make serious gains on Microsoft's market share (ie Skype), it was taken over by Microsoft. Nevertheless, all features that Microsoft thinks you should have from Windows Live Messenger (and no more) will be available in Skype.

Extend, Embrace, Extinguish

Been going on for years and it looks like OpenOffice/Libreoffice is in sight. I just hope I can get people to go to XMPP or another open protocol but I'm not holding my breath. Still, it'll hopefully enable me to retire all my Microsoft accounts.

 

[Tubefan2013]

SO is that the end of the likes of Windows live messanger?

 

[lemonic]

SO is that the end of the likes of Windows live messanger?

Yes. Windows Live Messenger will no longer work in this country from 15 March.

 

[fgwrich]

Yes. Windows Live Messenger will no longer work in this country from 15 March.

I really hope then that it dosent mean the end of the current Windows Live Hotmail design by then, a friend of mine has the newer Windows Hotmail Outlook design (Based on windows awful tile design) and it looks and feels absolutely awful.

 

[yorkie]

Windows Live Messenger is/was awful software.

I use Pidgin, which is far better. No adverts, it's not bloated, doesn't consume loads of memory or CPU usage, and it doesn't crash!

The only problem I have is that I use an MSN account with Pidgin. Does anyone have any suggestions to resolve that problem? What alternative account would you recommend that will work well with Pidgin? I can use Skype with Pidgin using a plugin but surely there's a better alternative as it is a bit of a pain to do that.

 

[maniacmartin]

I've moved over to the official Skype Linux client. You can get it in a deb if you want for easy installation. Whilst not open source, I've found it very reliable and easy to use.

 

[90019]

I tried Skype recently.
I used to use it, years ago, and it was quite good back then. However it would appear things have changed a lot since then. After setting it up, I couldn't figure any of it out - it's incredibly unintuitive and the interface is just plain crap.

I use Trillian now, which I'd highly recommend, even after such a short time using it, as it's a million times better and easier to use than Skype.
Until messenger is discontinued, I'm continuing to use the old version I have (2009 - so much simpler and nicer than the newer ones, IMO) alongside Trillian.

 

[carriageline]

As far as I'm aware, Skype will do exactly the same job, with all the same contacts etc.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I tried Skype recently.
I used to use it, years ago, and it was quite good back then. However it would appear things have changed a lot since then. After setting it up, I couldn't figure any of it out - it's incredibly unintuitive and the interface is just plain crap.

This.

It used to be fairly nice and clean and simple. Now it just looks a confusing mess.

 

[lemonic]

I really hope then that it dosent mean the end of the current Windows Live Hotmail design by then, a friend of mine has the newer Windows Hotmail Outlook design (Based on windows awful tile design) and it looks and feels absolutely awful.

There has been nothing to suggest that Windows Live Hotmail will go over to Outlook when Messenger closes down, but it may happen eventually. I use the new Outlook and I think it is great. It runs much faster than Hotmail and just works really well. I think you can currently revert back to Hotmail if you prefer it though.

 

[Clip]

Wow I didnt even know people still used this. Im not even sure why I still have a hotmail account as everyone has migrated onto Gmail or something else so I dont even use that anymore.

Im a bit more advanced as I use a telephone

 

[Geezertronic]

Im a bit more advanced as I use a telephone

You can't be that advanced if you still call them telephones

I use Skype for fork. Much better than the Office Communicator that comes as part of the standard build