Microsft's Plan to Retire Windows Live Messenger in Favor by Skype

Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger may soon be scrapped and integrated into Skype in the coming months. According to The Verge, plans to integrate the instant messaging service that was formerly known as MSN Messenger were reported to be underway. Over the past few months, Microsoft has gradually been moving users over to the Messenger backend for Skype, and approximately 80 percent of all instant messages sent via Skype were being handled by Windows Live Messenger.
Microsoft has not yet confirmed or denied the change, but an official announcement is expected to be released anytime, possibly as early as the first few weeks of November 2012. It is believed that the change made a lot of sense because, for months, Microsoft is noticed to have been making moves that indicate retiring the Windows Live brand.
Windows Live Messenger is dependent on Microsoft’s Messenger service, the same platform that is used to support Skype. This shared architecture can be viewed as an early sign of a looming merger. Consolidating messaging services like this is a way to reduce the potential confusion among users when they are confronted by duplicate options and functionalities.
Windows Live Messenger 2012 was released by Microsoft only in August 2012, so it is understandable that the company is taking time to move things over to Skype, which was first acquired by Microsoft in May 2011 for $8.5 billion.
In 2009, Windows Live Messenger amassed over 330 million monthly active users. Once the change is in effect, Skype, at the very least, is expected to see a drastic jump in its numbers which, as reported in October 2012, had already passed 45 million concurrent users.
Ahead of the global retirement plan for Windows Live Messenger, Skype has been making efforts to link Skype login names to Microsoft accounts. The users of Skype 6.0 for Mac and Windows are prompted with options to log in using either a Microsoft or a Facebook account. Similarly, axing Windows Live Messenger in favor of Skype is seen as a strategic decision by Microsoft to keep its users on the same page.
WebProNews sees that the popularity of SMS and other mobile messaging solutions has slowly eroded the use of IM services like Windows Live Messenger. And since Skype, in a single app, can provide the services that a mobile user needs, then this integration is an intuitive move.

Source: UCStrategies.com