06.30.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Another Microsoft Product Dies: MSN Web Messenger
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
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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It is very much out of date.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
DiamondWakizashi said,
June 30, 2009 at 4:14 pm
How much longer until they cancel Windows?
Roy Schestowitz said,
June 30, 2009 at 4:35 pm
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 Reply:
June 30th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
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 said,
July 1, 2009 at 2:34 am
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 Reply:
July 1st, 2009 at 3:48 am
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 said,
July 1, 2009 at 3:53 am
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…