Carl Tyler's Blog

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OK remember when Microsoft was crying foul about AOL blocking out 3rd party IM clients, and Microsoft invested huge amounts of money to make integration a key ingredient into the AOL Time Warner merger? Well I now get this great message from Microsoft every time my Trillian client connects to MSN Network.
Now first off all I am not using the MS Messenger client, and secondly I have no intention of using it, Trillian is just a better client. I answer the message, by saying sorry I don't want to, but they never answer.

What is interesting is that I used to have a slide containing the reasons why you wouldn't want to use a "free" IM service and one of the reasons was "You never know when they'll want you to pay for it", see this quote...

"Running an (IM) network is expensive," said Lisa Gurry, group product manager for MSN at Microsoft. "We can't sustain multiple other people's businesses, particularly if they charge for certain versions of their software. We're introducing licensing processes for third parties like Trillian."

I guess Microsoft doesn't have enough money put away to subsidize the huge money losing MSN outfit anymore. Or they aren't happy that even though they ship a free client with Windows, people are still choosing to use someone else's....