Microsoft had announced today (January 9th, 2013) that it's going to kill our very dear and old friend: the Instant Messenger (IM), in favor (or favour, depends on your locale) of Skype. Well, Skype has 31 million users, while IM has 330 million users, though we cannot tell if all of them are active or not - apparently those numbers are not published.
One of the main differences between Skype and IM is that Skype is a peer to peer technology, in which its only access to a server is to confirm the password on login; the rest of the time, it's P2P, encrypted, and basically better and safer to use than IM. IM goes through a server, and all your posts and messages pass through a server as well.(That means that publishing those numbers shouldn't be a problem for Microsoft who owns both technologies, but it's theirs and it is theirs choice).
Nevertheless, it's the use that counts: the first thing we think of when we hear "Skype" is "Internet Telephony" while with IM it's "quick chat" (though you can use both technologies for both), and that's why I was quite devastated to hear that from my Husband (and no, I didn't shot the messenger, ha ha very funny), since I am a worker on a PC and my favourite method of communicating with my husband is via the IM. Since both of us are in the same profession approximately (he's a web developer) I sometimes use it to send him a quick link or to ask him a tech question... Romantic, I know.
Unfortunately, installing Skype on my machine without the proper set of of headset seems a bit out of order, as I cannot receive or accept calls (I work in a financial institution, remember?)
So therefore let me cry out load: Microsoft! Don't give up! We all love our IM! Don't make it a thing of the past! Alternatively, send me a headset!
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