Microsoft to use Skype to replace MSN China Mainland MSN continue operation

Xinhua Shanghai, November 7 (reporter Kaoshaohua) Microsoft announced 7th, will be in the first quarter of 2013 in the global scope of Skype to replace MSN. "MSN China market is not affected, Chinese users can still enjoy MSN services, MSN China will continue to increase the quality of service," said Microsoft MSN China. ”

MSN Business to be incorporated into Skype

MSN is Microsoft's Instant messaging (IM) software, once the world's largest instant messaging software, at the peak of the global Instant Messaging market share 40.67% of the market. However, market share has been declining in recent years.

Microsoft 7th unexpectedly announced that MSN services (outside China) will be discontinued in the first quarter of 2013, the business into Skype. The company's CEO, Tony Betz, said on the official blog that by then, Messenger users would simply upgrade to the latest version of Skype and register to use a Microsoft account to communicate with Messenger contacts in their Microsoft accounts.

In May 2011, Microsoft spent 8.5 billion dollars to acquire Skype, the largest acquisition in Microsoft's history. In the industry, Microsoft's MSN integration into Skype, MSN has been a weak development in recent years and have to do business layout adjustment.

In terms of MSN and Skype's business itself, MSN focuses on communication between online users, and Skype focuses on using communication channels to communicate cheaply, says Dongxu, an international analyst at Analysys. Lower MSN user activity leads to a drop in traffic, which affects the voice of its traffic while also affecting its commercial value, while Skype has the ability to meet the needs of MSN. It is perhaps for this reason that Microsoft made Skype's decision to integrate MSN.

MSN "beat Himself"

In recent years, Microsoft for MSN constantly adjust the strategy and positioning, resulting in a decline in user experience, coupled with account poisoning, unable to login, spam and other phenomena such as the phenomenon of long-term occurrence, so that the number of MSN users increasingly reduce the market share continues to lose.

"In China's Instant messaging market, MSN and QQ originally through the difference between the location of each party, the formation of dual-male hegemony." Goutain Technology founder Expressway to reporters, with the passage of time, MSN in several aspects are fade decline, gradually "actively" hand over the market. MSN problems are mainly in some areas can not continue to do well, such as the early failure to send large files, and later because of a variety of reasons often fall off the line, now developed into some users as long as on the MSN on the pop-up of a large number of spam ads caused serious harassment.

In addition, these years MSN from the management team to product development, cooperation strategy, there is instability and variability, and ultimately make MSN market space become increasingly narrow. "Not so much as MSN lost to competitors, rather than MSN from the mess, their own defeated." "Expressway said.

Thy billows Technology Co., Ltd. General manager Du Hongsu that, MSN market share of the decline, in addition to its neglect of user experience, often off the line and other problems caused by poor market reputation, but also because of its lack of sustainable, long-term localization strategy and implementation mechanism, "quick success but haste".

In addition, in recent years the rapid emergence of mobile instant messaging market, a number of internet giants, telecom operators have entered the market, such as micro-letter, rice chat and other products have been listed and popular, all crowding out the MSN and other traditional instant messaging software market space.

MSN China market still facing challenges

In response to this integration, Microsoft MSN China's official in the interview stressed that the MSN China market is not affected, Chinese users can still enjoy MSN services, MSN China will continue to increase efforts to improve service quality.

According to Analysys International statistics, in China's instant messaging market in the second quarter of this year, MSN ranked fourth in China's instant messaging market, accounting for about 4.6% of the market, followed by Skype, which accounts for about 1.9% of the market share.

"The Future Cloud world, the entrance becomes the focus of competition, IM is also one of the portals, IM will no longer be a single instant messaging tool." The Messenger account will be the only gateway to Microsoft's cloud services and products in the future. MSN China has previously told reporters that.

MSN (China) General manager Liuzhenyu not long ago also said that Microsoft MSN since 2005 into the Chinese market, after the Chinese internet market seven years of ups and downs. "Over the past seven years, we have been building ecosystems, with the rise of cloud computing and the new windows into the Chinese market, we have seen this opportunity to encirclement the ecosystem, and cloud fusion will give us new opportunities for development." ”

However, some insiders pointed out to the reporter, for MSN China, the current priority is to upgrade the user experience as soon as possible, effectively meet the localization needs, reversing the loss of the user's adverse situation.

Eric Ranking, chief operating officer of the consulting Group, said MSN China should adhere to two directions: first, in the MSN existing users, the need to strengthen product features, and effectively meet the current white-collar workers in day-to-day communication and work of various needs; the second is the current user in the mobile terminal chat demand with very strong carry-on, This market development is not mature, the market structure is not fixed, to MSN China also has a lot of market space.