Microsoft finally pulls the plug on its MSN Messenger after 15 memorable years as the software giant pushes users towards its Skype service.
A year after the company announced that it is shutting down MSN Messenger, otherwise known as Windows Live Messenger, the time has finally arrived for the world to bid farewell to the decade-and-a-half old service.
Microsoft originally revealed plans to shift all users from Windows Live Messenger to Skype in January last year. But the service continued to operate uninterrupted in China, through partnership with a third party company. As the fate of MSN Messenger is sealed, the chat service will no longer be operable anywhere in the world after October 31, including its last surviving market-China, The Verge reported.
Microsoft launched MSN Messenger in 1999 in a bid to compete against AOL's AIM service. The battle between the two messaging giants of the time ran for a long time. Microsoft gained supremacy as it reverse-engineered AOL's chat protocol to let MSN Messenger users sign into AIM directly. The company also added various features that boosted the online messaging platform. MSN Messenger offered its users ustom emoticons, a nudge feature that shakes a friend's chat window and the ability to play Minesweeper with friends.
The news was communicated to all MSN subscribers via emails. As it closes the last chapter of MSN Messenger in China, Microsoft is offering a $2 Skype credit to its subscribers so they continue to stick with the Redmond software giant instead of shifting to rival messaging services.
The company did not share the number of users on its MSN Messenger service but the newer services like Tencent's WeChat has clearly gained dominance in the instant messaging and calling space in China. WeChat currently serves 438 million active users, which makes it the country's largest smartphone messaging app, The Next Web reports.
