Microsoft Discontinuing Messenger
Microsoft has announced that it will be discontinuing its Windows Live Messenger on March 15th, 2013. All users aside from those in mainland China will be required to switch to Skype, which Microsoft acquired in 2011.
As this OnSoftware blog post notes, this is an unusually bold action for Microsoft, which normally puts great effort into maintaining older software.
Some additional information about the switch along with a sample of the mail sent out to Messenger users about the change is up on The Next Web.