San Francisco — Microsoft has finally announced that their old-timer MSN web-based messenger will become unavailable from this Tuesday, June 30, 2009. But the software behemoth is only pulling out the old MSN Web Messenger, as it has now recently introduced Windows Live Messenger that is integrated into Hotmail and Windows Live People. The ace service has allowed access to their popular instant messaging network via a web browser for the past five years.
The software giant is calling its users to change their Web Messenger that is integrated in Windows Live People and Windows Live Hotmail. Microsoft made the announcement on its Windows Live blog.
MSN Web Messenger launched back in August 2004, and since the beginning of this year a newer replacement service for MSN Web Messenger has been available as part of Windows Live Hotmail, featuring direct integration with the email interface and your contact list (known as Windows Live People).
“On June 30, MSN Web Messenger will close; however, customers will continue to have the opportunity to connect with each other using Windows Live Hotmail’s web-based IM, a version of Windows Live Messenger which is accessible through your Windows Live Hotmail account,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement via e-mail. “We made the decision to retire MSN Web Messenger as part of our overall investment in updating and re-aligning our online services under the Windows Live brand. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause our customers.”
The new web messenger can be accessed straightaway from your Hotmail inbox and works as another location for Messenger’s multiple points of presence (MPOP) feature, meaning that you can sign into the web service whilst still signed into the Windows Live Messenger client on one or more computers. The biggest plus-point to the combined version of Web Messenger is that Windows Live Hotmail actually displays you if a user is online: if someone that sent you an e-mail is in your contact list, e-mails from them will have a little status icon (the same icons that are used in Windows Live Messenger are used) that you can click on to start a conversation.
The service will now stands the only officially supported web-based client for accessing the Windows Live Messenger network, apart from the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit which allows developers to integrate messaging controls into their own websites.
The integration of this service is a monumental enhancement over MSN Web Messenger, but it is not what it first began out to be: when it was first demonstrated it had tabbed conversations. That feature, however, still has not made it into Windows Live Messenger, so it is not really a bit surprise that Web Messenger does not yet have it.