Microsoft Axing Messenger On March 15th

[wraggster]

An anonymous reader writes with news that Microsoft is killing Messenger in favor of Skype. From the article:"Microsoft on Tuesday mass emailed its 100 million+ Messenger users to let them know that the service is officially being retired on March 15, 2013 (http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2013/01/09/microsoft-emails-messenger-users-to-let-them-know-the-service-is-retiring-on-march-15-and-to-upgrade-to-skype/). On that date, all users will be migrated to Skype, which Microsoft acquired back in May 2011 for $8.5 billion (http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/05/10/1244253/microsoft-buying-skype-for-85b). This means Messenger will be shut down in just 66 days. It will only keep working afterwards in mainland China, mainly because Skype is operated there by a local provider called TOM."Relatedly, an anonymous reader asks:"I am looking to build a Skype replacement for me and some friends and was wondering which languages you would use server side to handle all of the encrypted data streaming? I am thinking to use SIP on a centralized server (as NAT can be a pain to get through). The clients will use end-to-end encryption. Thoughts?"There are some alternatives already (http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Skype_Replacement), for variable definitions of working.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/01/09/141234/microsoft-axing-messenger-on-march-15th