Microsoft and Skype to axe world's most popular IM client early 2013

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/07/microsoft_messenger_kill_date/

by esalazar • 14 years ago

69 74 14 years ago

theregister.co.uk

citricsquid2• 14 years ago

I still use MSN and I guess I don't really mind, MSN has a lot of history but it's a mediocre client and Skype is much better. I used to have 100s of contacts on MSN with ~50 online at any one time, now everyone that used MSN casually uses Facebook chat so I have... 2 people online (both of which are listed as away) and anyone that uses IM seriously seems to use Skype. It was inevitable.

Does anyone here still use MSN? They say it's the most popular client, but that doesn't fit my current experience, I guess China makes up the majority of that usage? Of the people I know that still use MSN they just have it running because why not, they don't actively use it. That's how I use it.

nolok• 14 years ago

It is still very popular in western europe, aol and yahoo messenger never made any real entry here and msn took the whole cake. More and more people are moving out to skype and facebook, but I still have a big list of contacts there.

EnderMB• 14 years ago

It was really popular over here (UK), but it died out fairly quickly when Facebook took over. My girlfriend is a teacher and she says that none of her students really knew what Windows Live Messenger was; kids today stick to Facebook, BBM and some use Twitter.

creatio• 14 years ago

I actively use it to talk to my brother, 1/2 friends and for school group projects. It's super easy when I need to take a screenshot with the snipping tool and send to them. Not sure how easy that is to do in Skype (which I have but don't use).

meaty3• 14 years ago

I use it to talk to my other half whilst in the office - that is it.

I'll switch to IRSSI over SSH onto my hosted server (I'll just run a local ircd) and she can use mIRC on her laptop instead. I have no intention of using another hosted service. It would be more reliable as well - Live Messenger reliability has always been crap.

(For ref, I do not use Skype, Facebook or any social tools).

briffle• 14 years ago

Just as an FYI, you can setup your own XMPP server in 20 min, and chat with people on facebook, gtalk, etc. www.prosody.im

darklajid• 14 years ago

Extend that solution: bitlbee

mailarchis• 14 years ago

MSN is probably big in China next only to QQ. In India, msn messenger never caught up and people started with yahoo and then moved on to gtalk.

chollida1• 14 years ago

I used to. Oddly enough in finance AOL instant messenger is still used a lot.

You are legally allowed to issue trade orders via AOL IM.

Bloomberg chat also allows you to put your AOL contacts into it and use it as your chat program.

These two things have helped to keep it alive alot longer than maybe it should have been.

rb12345• 14 years ago

I think the reason China is excluded is probably because China gets its own customised Skype as opposed to using the standard client.

https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10910/what-is-tom-online

mariusmg2• 14 years ago

They kill the client or the protocol ? It's not really clear from the article. Don't care about the client itself (most IM clients suck anyway), that's why we have pidgin.

belorn2• 14 years ago

I thought the protocol used a central server for transferring contact information between users. If they shutdown those severs, then pidgin's msn implementation wont do us any good.

mariusmg2• 14 years ago

Found some more info about this at http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/micros... .Apparently the won't kill the servers too so there's still hope of continuing with pidgin.

isani• 14 years ago

They're killing the client. Messenger accounts continue to work, and users can sign in to the Skype client with their existing Messenger credentials. Messenger will be run on the same infrastructure as before, not on the Skype peer-to-peer model. As far as I can tell, third-party clients should continue to work as well.

TeMPOraL2• 14 years ago

Skype client should be axed instead. It's a pile of ugly looking mess and eats half of computer's resources. I dread to turn it on anywhere else than on my overpowered home PC. And don't even get me started on the Android client. It's completely useless on a high-powered tablet, and equally useless on a low-powered phone.

I remember the times when official IM clients were lightweight and pleasant to use. Now you either have to go to third party / open source stuff (WTW, Pidgin, you name it), or just keep that GMail and Facebook tabs open.

ed_blackburn• 14 years ago

The way they seem to be recruiting in the UK, I would speculate that they are going to re-write it.

cabirum• 14 years ago

umm.. Skype certainly has some usability problems, but "half of computer's resources"? Are you trying to use it on a raspberry pi?

TeMPOraL2• 14 years ago

Rhetorics. Of course I didn't eat half the resources, but was a noticable drain on the overall performance of some computers I was working on, and the UI of Skype itself was very unresponsive and freezed for seconds quite often.

recursive• 14 years ago

I have never noticed any slowness with it on my Nexus.

UnoriginalGuy5• 14 years ago

Most of the Nexus devices and phone are power-houses. Skype app has improved a little but on cheap phones it is difficult to use (or at least that was my experience on a ZTE Android device).

rbn• 14 years ago

Skype has a Win8 App

UnoriginalGuy5• 14 years ago

It does indeed. But have you used it? It is missing most of Skype's features and requires you to sign in using a Live Account.

Merging Live and Skype Accounts is a problem for me personally since I want to use Skype on insecure WiFi (and obviously my Live account is also an e-mail account).

gubatron3• 14 years ago

and you cannot use it on desktop mode. So, IMing and working on something else at the same time? impossible.

Microsoft trying to shove the tablet experience on the desktop is going to hurt them big time. Now they kill MSN messenger, all latin america will be very sad, they still use that software down there.

citricsquid2• 14 years ago

I'm running Windows 7 and the Skype client is using 132mb of ram, that's with 18 chats open (of which 3 are group chats). Not sure if my usage pattern is typical, but I don't think 132mb ram is much, it's using less than about 6 other programs I have running.

davedx• 14 years ago

I don't disagree with you. Skype is ugly, bloated and has been crashing frequently since the last couple of updates on my computers.

The problem is: it works.

I tried to do a Google Hangout last night, and the plugin couldn't find my mic. Logged into Skype, it worked perfectly.

It'll be a while yet before someone really takes Skype's business. For now it's my #1 goto communication line as a remote freelancer.

UnoriginalGuy5• 14 years ago

This was the point I was going to make too. Skype is terrible, but yet it is still the best compared the competition.

Let's consider the competition:

- Live Messenger: It was the next best, now discontinued, but before that it was poorly supported, rarely updated, and had a ton of bugs. No external connectors (e.g. telephone networks).

- Google Hangouts: Browser only. No external connectors.

- Facetime: Apple ecosystem only. No external connectors.

- AIM: No video/voice chat. No external connectors.

- Cisco WebEx: Expensive.

I'm sure there are others. But in general this is a very unhealthy market with not a lot of competition. It has always been that way. We desperately need an explosion of innovation here.

antonioevans• 14 years ago

I think you need to update your skype.

gubatron3• 14 years ago

did you try skype on Windows 8? there's no way to use it as an IM client on a Window (unless you install an older version)

Microsoft is on a roll of dementia.

jonatron• 14 years ago

Skype also doesn't work on windows on 16 core PCs with hyperthreading enabled.

plq• 14 years ago

    Skype client should be axed instead.

I'm guessing they're doing this because it'd be much harder to bolt Skype's VoIP engine to Messenger.

Tyrannosaurs• 14 years ago

Yes, but the MS Messenger Service loses money with no sign of an actual workable business model, Skype at least generates revenue.

"Merging" the two gives Microsoft a way out of Messenger without losing too much face.

Swannie• 14 years ago

MS Messenger is actually the foundation for their Enterprise level Unified Communications offering.

It will be interesting if that client also gets the axe in favour of Skype, or if they intend to keep it as a separate product.

TorKlingberg• 14 years ago

I think the Messenger client for Android launch as late as August this year, and to very little fanfare. At least Skype has established mobile clients. It's strange how Microsoft let the strong MSN Messenger brand slip.

89a• 14 years ago

iOS one was out in the first few months of the App Store.

So they do support major platforms quite well

belorn2• 14 years ago

Maybe this will help the uptake of xmpp.

pestaa2• 14 years ago

I hope you're right and very afraid you are not. Neither Skype nor Microsoft are keen on utilizing open source.

garethadams• 14 years ago

Windows Live Messenger is XMPP - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh826554.aspx

pgeorgi2• 14 years ago

It's even worse than facebook's approach to XMPP (I didn't think that's possible): Not only does it not provide server-to-server access, it also requires client tokens for OAuth that must be requested out-of-band, so any vanilla XMPP client can't make use of that endpoint.

marcf• 14 years ago

Can they optimize Skype so that it doesn't require 80MB-130MB just to run in the background? How can it require this much memory to run an instant messenger? Couldn't they delay load some of the features if they aren't yet being used (such as video codecs and audio codecs and other such features?)

ido• 14 years ago

I guess in a time where 4-8gb ram is the norm, 80-130mb memory consumption is not seen as a priority.

pestaa2• 14 years ago

Yes it would be a great trade-off, but the window still takes seconds to display.

dade_• 14 years ago

Google needs to work hard and fast pushing google talk. This will determine Google's place in the future of VoIP / video calling in the Internet.

gubatron3• 14 years ago

google talk was killed too. Now it's all G+

hejsna• 14 years ago

The best way to spend any extra money saved on retiring MSN: open up the Skype API for devs to use. Adium is still the undisputed king of IM clients and with a proper Skype plugin for it I'd be happy again. Because let's face it, the Skype client is really, really bad.

DeepDuh• 14 years ago

Goddamnit yes. Waiting years for this.

xutopia• 14 years ago

Surely they know something we don't. I expected them to go the other way by bringing Skype into Messenger.

jpswade• 14 years ago

This fixes the "Messenger" branding issue.

sinesha• 14 years ago

Performance aside, here is what I hate about Skype compared to MSN / WLM: privacy. (1) Skype logs you in to your last known status / on MSN you could choose before login (for example, "appear offline"/"invisible"). If I just want to check if a contact is online without my aunt start chatting, I can't. (2) There is no easy way to block whole contact groups temporarily. When I'm at work, I don't want my friends to see me online; when I'm at home, I don't want to be contacted by co-workers. (3) Say I'm chatting with Bob, and he goes offline just before I send him a last IM. This IM will be delivered the next time that we are both online. Even if one of us is "appearing offline"/"invisible". So we have a way of knowing when someone is hiding: just send someone a message when they are offline. Bah. (4) Not related, but the delivery of old messages is awful across platforms. What annoys me the most about these bugs (1-3) is that they seem so easy to fix, and yet nothing is done. Meh. Do you have similar frustrations?

petepete• 14 years ago

(2) surely isn't a bug; if you have two subsets of contacts that you want to keep entirely separate why use a single account?

lambda• 14 years ago

Skype doesn't make it easy to use two accounts. There is no "multiple accounts" feature where you can be logged in as one or both; instead, you have to log out and log back in again as the other. Sometimes, you might be on-call, so chatting with friends is OK, but you still need to be available to coworkers.

The problem with Skype is that it's totally closed. I use a multi-protocol IM client, with multiple accounts, so I can chat with people over AIM, FB, Google Chat, my work chat, and so on. Sadly, despite the fact that my work has Google Apps, which includes chat, they have standardized on Skype instead, so I need to have an entirely separate client, and log out and log back in when switching between work and personal accounts.

jdp23• 14 years ago

Back in 2006, MSN Messenger was one of the world's best-known brands (its logo outscored Mickey Mouse!); in large parts of Asia and Europe it had become a verb -- "I'll MSN you"; and had some clever approaches to ads that got extremely high clickthroughs.

But then MS changed its name to 'Windows Live Messenger' to boost the Windows Live brand; underinvested in development and support; and focused its advertising on trying to compete with Google for search ads.

Ah well. The path not taken.

buro9• 14 years ago

A truer description might be that the brand is being axed.

I believe that Skype has been migrated onto a messenger backend... so really this is a unification of the chat tech onto messenger, and the brand onto Skype.

navs• 14 years ago

Did anyone notice how Skype now shows ads on the their iPhone app? Far as I'm concerned it and live messenger have the same overall experience. I'd do away with Skype if I weren't using it to keep in touch with clients.

mileswu• 14 years ago

I sign onto my various IM accounts from a variety of locations simultaneously (e.g. desktop at home, laptop in office, phone) and I find it infuriating that every protocol has a different way of handling that.

MSN: Sends incoming message _only_ to the last active computer (where last active seems to be defined by which computer last sent an IM or updated your status)

AIM: Sends incoming messages to all computers

XMPP (Gtalk): Inconsistent behaviour. I think the priorities set by various clients screw things up.

Skype: Does weird chat/history syncing between all your computers (this raises Privacy issues, as many times if I delete a chat on my desktop, it somehow reappears on my phone when I sign in on it. Also although it syncs the chat text, why not also sync whether the messages have been read or not, because at the moment if I sign in on my phone, it constantly buzzes for about 5 minutes as it 'catches' up on a ton of unread messages (which I've read ages ago on my computer).)

What's worse is status fragmentation. I've set my desktop and laptop to auto-away after 5 minutes, so people know if I'm there or if they can leave a message I'll read later. Run through this situation: 1) Signed in on desktop, go away. Pidgin sets Away on my accounts. 2) Some time later, turn on laptop. Adium sets all my accounts as Online. 3) Turn off laptop to go somewhere. Adium signs out and my accounts get left as Online. Desktop doesn't re-auto-away and so people think I'm there when I'm not.

None of these are ideal, and the only 'solution' I've found is to use a service like http://imo.im where their service only signs on _once_ to the accounts, but you access imo.im on any number of devices so it can make sure that every device has the same chat there. Problem with this is I don't like using web apps and would prefer to use native Pidgin/Adium if possible.

Any suggestions?

sp332• 14 years ago

According to Ars Technica, the infrastructure will be the same. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/micros... This is more of a rebrand than an "axe".

Achshar• 14 years ago

Related: Can't seem to find Skype metro in windows store on release preview. Any way of running it here?

Microsoft and Skype to axe world's most popular IM client early 2013

Related Stories