Windows Live Messenger, which was born out of MSN Messenger, has been confirmed to be in the last few months of its life span.
Over the last few months, Microsoft has been quietly transitioning accounts to the messenger backend of Skype, so it would seem that Skype is going to be the next defacto “Live Messenger.” This would go hand in hand with the fact that Skype now allows users to login with Facebook and Microsoft Accounts, if they have upgraded to the Windows 8 client of the popular VoIP software or if you’re using Skype 6.0 for Mac.
Microsoft will be migrating over a 100 million user accounts to Skype in order to phase out the Live Messenger. According to Skype’s Toby Bates, “We will retire Messenger in all countries worldwide in the first quarter of 2013 (with the exception of mainland China where Messenger will continue to be available).”
Microsoft has planned on retiring the Live Messenger services globally by the first quarter of 2013, and replaces it with Skype.
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