There was also MSN messenger, which was more capable than Skype other than the connection to the actual telephone network (having messages be delivered later without requiring both people to be online at the same time - amazing!) and when Teams replaced Skype, even more features were dropped. What part of that is positive other than "well, you can still do some of the things but we prefer to give you an inferior product".
Lets be honest, no Microsoft messaging platform had a chance to be a 2022 whatsapp/messenger competitor. They were smart to realise that and focused on their Slack alternative for businesses which they can package with the rest of Office package. And with the new EU regulation on the way it makes even less sense
It would have had a chance if they didn't screw up MSN and Skype which were both incredibly successful communication tools among teens and 20 something.
Everybody was on MSN. Everybody was on Skype.
Once whatsapp and facebook messenger mobile started taking place it was already N years too late. Now in 2022, they have no chance.
But that is not Microsoft's target market. They sell business oriented productivity tools. Only recently have they started having a consumer oriented gaming products which is still a small list of products around Xbox console platform
When Teams came out it didn’t have feature parity with SfB, despite their claims that it did, but here in 2022, it does. At least I can’t think of a sing feature in SfB that’s not in Teams now, and can think of many features that have been radically improved. Never used consumer Skype too much, what are you missing in Teams now?
SfB saved conversations to outlook, that way it had a great search. Unless I’m missing something, Teams does not do that, and the built-in search is a complete joke (you get single message results with no way to read all the context).
My experience with the saved convos in Outlook from SfB was kinda hit or miss, but you're totally right. Teams doesn't even try. Or I suppose, Teams does store your chat history in the mailbox, but it's not in a folder that's user accessible anymore. I'm sure reasons include driving users to the Teams interface. But it then begs the question about why I still have that empty folder in my mailbox structure.
- Skype has a full screen button for screen sharing, Teams always takes up some space with their little frames at the sides. Annoying as hell
- Skype has a 'actual size' button. So even if someone shares a bigger screen, you can still read it. On some versions of Teams you can cheat a bit, by holding control and scrolling your mouse wheel. But that is more a side effect of their electron framework than something intentional. Especially non-power users will never discover this
- Skype had way more flexibility in configuring simultaneous call (someone calls your skype but you want your mobile phone to ring when AFK). This is a huge deal to me.
And those are three simple features that greatly impact my quality of life with the product. A non-functional feature would also be the sluggishness. A skype chat window is quick, responsive, instant. Teams always hangs around half a second when switching between chat windows. And on lower performance pc's switching to a chat takes more than a second.
MSN Messenger is on the list.
In the Apps part and in the middle column.
1999 - 2013
MSN Messenger
Killed about 9 years ago, MSN Messenger (later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger) was a cross-platform instant messaging client. It was over 13 years old.
