Microsoft To Kill The Messenger And Migrate Users To Skype In March

This week Microsoft sent out a mass e-mail to all 100,000,000+ users of its Messenger instant messaging application. The mass e-mail was sent out to let users know that as of March 15, 2013 Messenger would no longer be available. Microsoft will be migrating all Messenger users over to Skype on March 15.

This migration has been brewing since Microsoft purchase Skype in May of 2011 for a whopping $8.5 billion. After the March 15 deadline, messenger will only continue to work in mainland China. This is reportedly because Skype is operated by a local provider called TOM in mainland China.

Microsoft is urging users to go ahead and update to Skype and sign in using a Microsoft Account, which is the same as the users Messenger ID. The good thing is that all of the users Messenger contacts will be available and users will be able to instant messaging video chat with them via Skype just as they did previously on Messenger.

Microsoft previously promised that Messenger would be retired in Q1 of 2013, but the exact date was only revealed this week. Messenger users will be given the option to merge your own accounts and message both Skype and Messenger contacts.

[via TheNextWeb]