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

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.<p>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.

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 <i>casually</i> 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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.<p>Ah well. The path not taken.

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?)

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?

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.

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.<p>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)<p>AIM: Sends incoming messages to all computers<p>XMPP (Gtalk): Inconsistent behaviour. I think the priorities set by various clients screw things up.<p>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).)<p>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.<p>None of these are ideal, and the only 'solution' I've found is to use a service like <a href="http://imo.im" rel="nofollow">http://imo.im</a> 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.<p>Any suggestions?

According to Ars Technica, the infrastructure will be the same. <a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/microsoft-to-kill-off-the-messenger-client-and-regroup-under-the-skype-brand/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/micros...</a> This is more of a rebrand than an "axe".

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

This fixes the "Messenger" branding issue.

Maybe this will help the uptake of xmpp.