Another Microsoft Product Dies: MSN Web Messenger

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-06-30 20:06:33 UTC
Modified: 2009-06-30 20:06:33 UTC

Summary: Microsoft hangs the Messenger

EARLY in the day we wrote about Microsoft discarding over 2,000 more employees and once in about a fortnight (on average) we see yet another Microsoft product being axed. The latest product which Microsoft axes has got a few hours left to live. That product is MSN Web Messenger.

The site will go offline June 30.

Microsoft made the announcement on its Windows Live blog.

This may represent another defeat to Google (this time it's videochat) and it resembles Microsoft's loss to Google's book-scanning initiative and YouTube too.

The Microsoft-sponsored press is already showing this list of dead products which Microsoft has been accumulating.

Microsoft's sidewalk memorial to Encarta, Money and other fossils

[...]

For anyone who's never been there, the company has this great old courtyard in Redmond where for many years it placed plaques in the sidewalk for nearly every piece of software it shipped.

It is very much out of date. With almost 20 dead products in the past 9 months (list needs updating), Microsoft will need many more plaques. ⬆

“Microsoft is, I think, fundamentally an evil company.”

--Former Netscape Chairman James H. Clark

Comments

DiamondWakizashi

2009-06-30 21:14:38

How much longer until they cancel Windows?
Roy Schestowitz

2009-06-30 21:35:42

Windows and Office are among Microsoft's few profitable products. They won't be canceled any time soon. In fact, without them, Microsoft would probably be out on the street.

DiamondWakizashi

2009-06-30 22:29:23

Windows and Office are profitable only because people are forced to buy them. Microsoft's garbage products can't compete in a fair and free market.

Motoko-chan

2009-07-01 07:34:08

Considering that most of the functionality is present in HotMail (kinda like GoogleMail / GoogleTalk integration), it's not as big of an event as it otherwise would be.

Colin

2009-07-01 08:48:59

Exactly, they've just moved the functionality into the Hotmail page. Since Live Messenger is still the world's most popular IM it's a stretch to spin this as a defeat for Microsoft.

Carlos Martins

2009-07-01 08:53:38

From what I could find, wasn't it just replaced with the new "improved" service that still allows you to use IM? (Not that I'll care to use it much... :)

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Another Microsoft Product Dies: MSN Web Messenger

Microsoft's sidewalk memorial to Encarta, Money and other fossils

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