With plans to entirely do away with its Windows Live Messenger service by late spring, Microsoft has sent out emails to current users, encouraging them to shift service to Skype within the next few weeks.
The email goes on to state that aside from remaining in mainland China, the service will be retired globally by March 15. Skype has been suggested as a ready alternative, as Microsoft recently has been improving its Windows support for the video chat service.
According to a breaking report by The Verge, despite Microsoft's "confusing email," the company is now planning on migrating only one percent of its WLM users to Skype by March 15, with the rest being shifted "from April 8 onwards."
English-language users will be migrated first, with those users speaking Portuguese reserved for last (that migration taking place "no sooner than April 30").
"The upgrade process itself has been going really well, we've had millions of customers move over," says Skype Marketing Integration Director Parri Munsell.
Although Microsoft users have been accessing Windows Live Messenger for the last 13 years, the fact that the company purchased Skype for a cool $8.5 billion in 2011 might have something to do with the quickly moving changeover.
Aside from users in China to whom this transition does not apply, those accessing Windows Live Messenger outside of their desktops have not yet been put on notice about the end of their service.
Because Skype is pre-streaming the client data to the user, the upgrade will already be active on users' machines when the notification arrives.
Skype and Microsoft alike have been mute about when the shift will take place for mobile users, though Munsell confirmed to ZDNet that the service will "eventually be shut down" on devices, as well, with third-party developers being responsible for making their respective announcements of the change themselves.
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