Case Study: MSN Messenger Discontinuation

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MSN Messenger used to be the most used Instant Messaging (IM) service that only lasted for fifteen years. This case report shows the MSN brief history from its birth and boom, and further explanation regarding the discontinuation of MSN Messenger. Also, this case report aims to show the analysis of the retirement of MSN Messenger. The analysis was conducted by the push-pull-mooring (PPM) framework regarding the human migration decision. The objective of this case report is to show reasons of MSN Messenger retirement and brief explanation of Microsoft’s alternative plan after the closure.

Birth and Boom

MSN Messenger was developed by Microsoft on July 22, 1999 (Nay, 2013). Microsoft is a multinational technology company from America which was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975. The product itself, MSN Messenger was an instant messaging that provides users to connect and communicate in real life with a Microsoft account. When it was first released, MSN Messenger was Microsoft’s response along with AIM (AOL Instant Messaging). MSN Messenger allowed users to sign in with AOL account until AOL took action to block Microsoft from having access to their services (Nay, 2013). Since then, Microsoft planned to integrate itself in natural way by requiring users for having a Windows Live ID to allowed connections to its service. For instance, Hotmail users were allowed to log in with their account which was used in Hotmail too. This allowed users to use the messaging program rapidly.

From 1999 to 2005, there were seven major versions of MSN Messenger. The first version, only included plain text messaging and a simple contact list. Providing file transfers, personalized avatars, and customizable theme color are some of the features as MSN Messenger kept improving. Until 2005, MSN Messenger was rebranded to Windows Live Messenger. The most significant change from the previous version (MSN Messenger) was the ability to offline messaging. Other than that, Windows Live Messenger also provided some new additions, for example new PC-to-phone calling, default display picture, an SMS phone book, ‘recently used lists’ for emoticon, display pictures, and background menus. Windows Live Messenger was very popular which gave a lot of registered accounts in result.

The variety of emoticons, ability to transfer files which made PC users felt hassle free, and also the Fun & Games features. For many people, MSN Messenger was the first way to build up communications, which attracted over 300 million users each month at 2009. Techspot.com applied that users of MSN Messenger kept growing since the first time it released until its peak year, 2009. Although the name was already changed, people still use the word MSN Messenger in colloquial.

Downfall

Seeing MSN Messenger growth was really a beautiful thing, knowing it kept growing and also improving their features. However, there were some bad moments that MSN Messenger could not survive nor compete with its competitors. Besides other instant messaging platform, like Yahoo! Messenger and AOL IM, there are two main rivals that MSN Messenger have to deal with. The rivals are the things people do and live with them every day, such as smartphone and social networks. Smartphone was come up in the late 2000s, which provides popular alternative apps to MSN Messenger. This led the ceasing of traditional instant messaging. A few months after smartphone became the favorite, WhatsApp took action to became the king of messaging apps, owning a lot of migration users from instant messaging (Izquierdo, 2018).

On the other side, social networks also represent MSN Messenger another good way of competing. (Izquierdo, 2018). For example, the most popular social networks who took part as social media, Facebook, has its own way to communicate with other users, such as internal chat. This kind of platform for communicating spread rapidly among instant messaging users, which led them to left instant messaging behind.

Unfortunately, bad news came from Microsoft, which announced the retirement of MSN Messenger in favor of Skype in the first quarter of 2013. MSN Messenger was unable to compete and survive with the ongoing condition, like the upcoming of smartphones and social networks. Providing Skype as the substitute of MSN Messenger was made to stay connected with Microsoft’s platform. Users could still sign in to Skype with Microsoft account (MSN ID) and communicate with their Messenger contacts as usual. Not only that, Microsoft also provided an incentive in form of offering $2 credits for users who migrate to Skype afterwards. The discontinuation process of the Messenger was finally announced on April 8, 2013. It also informed the closure on April 30, 2013 while in China would end on October 31, 2014.

Analysis

As a matter of fact, after Microsoft shut down MSN Messenger, only 100 million users have migrated to Skype. Microsoft’s migration led to involuntary switching, where users could unintentionally move or migrate to other service provider. This condition evidence that some of MSN Messenger’s users took the chance migrated to other new providers. According to Izquierdo (2018) about MSN Messenger’s hard and fast fall, he said that MSN Messenger was late to put action due to the emerging of smartphone and other social networks, while WhatsApp took its action to dominate the social networks services on smartphone. According to some researches, this situation led to the decision of human migration. Migration means movement from one part of something to another. The human migration decision is based on push-pull mooring framework according to some researches (Bansal, Taylor, & James, 2005).

Push factors refers to the factors that encourage or motivate people to leave. For MSN Messenger retirement, the push factors indicate the negative factors, since it pushes people away from the origin. Meanwhile, pull factors led to the positive factors that attract people to move in (Bansal, Taylor, & James, 2005). First, push factors is formed by several aspect, such as satisfaction, quality, value, trust, commitment, and price perceptions (Bansal, Taylor, & James, 2005). In this case, users found they are having a dissatisfaction with their incumbent services. User’s dissatisfaction could be in several forms, such as the service’s technical quality and information quality. For instance, in 2002, there was a confirmation from Microsoft that MSN Messenger was having a bug that could disclose user’s contacts names and e-mail addresses (Evers, 2002). This evidence to user’s disappointment due to the technical quality.

Second, pull factors refers to attractive factors that encourage people to move in (Bansal, Taylor, & James, 2005). In this case, pull factors represent positive factors that attract people to migrate to other providers, especially when the destination has better compatibility and high in technology. For instance, Facebook acquires users to use the social network and the messaging feature as well. Conversely, MSN Messenger only provided instant messaging. Due to the comparison between those two, users decided to migrate to a better services provider instead.

Lastly, the mooring effects indicate the complexity of the migration decision, contrast with the push-pull factors that aim to be the simplicity of the migration decision. Mooring effects refers to the brand switching’s variables, such as switching costs, social influences, attitudes toward switching, past behaviors, and variety-seeking tendencies (Bansal, Taylor, & James, 2005). Switching costs associated with several aspects, for example, financial, time, and effort. Financial costs seemed to be the primary costs that occur when someone migrate to another brand. Meanwhile, in this case, users had experience such switching costs, mainly on their effort when notifying others due to their migration to other IM service. Nevertheless, switching costs can affect someone’s intention to move (Fang & Tang, 2016). For instance, Microsoft’s innovation of providing Skype as an alternative of MSN Messenger disclosure might affect one’s decision to not migrate to other IM services.

Even though MSN Messenger had improved quiet well since the first version, MSN Messenger was proved could not compete with the new entrants. In October 2011, Microsoft bought Skype from Silver Lake Partners for $8.5 billion and process the integration afterwards. This action seemed to be Microsoft’s anticipation plan of knowing the MSN Messenger downfall. Meanwhile, in 2014, Microsoft finally shut MSN Messenger down. With the expectation that users would follow the Microsoft’s plan, whilst turned out only one-third of total users did so. In 2009, when approximately 300 million were using MSN Messenger, WhatsApp was established. WhatsApp seemed to be another alternative option for users after migrating to Skype, due to its capability to video calling, ability to transfer files, sharing user’s location, and ability to utilize it on smartphone or even PC. Not only that, in 2013, Google Hangout made an appearance to the communication platform developed by Google which made users to sign in with their Google accounts. Another feature that seemed to knock Skype off its feet was its video chat, which can have up to 10 participants, while Skype requires users to have Skype Premium with a paid subscription (Deyermenjian, 2013). Attached evidence the defeat of MSN Messenger on the communication platform.

According to Y.-H Fang, K. Tang’s research, ‘Involuntary Migration in Cyberspaces: The Case of MSN Messenger Discontinuation’ (2017), they conducted a study of 381 instant messaging service users on migration decisions. Not only that, they also indicated that network effects, similarity and innovation, switching costs, and those three factors could influence one’s decision to migrate. They analyzed the data with two-step approach, with the first step is the analysis of the measurement model and the second one is the structural relationship among the latent constructs. There were eleven hypotheses were tested based on the research model applied. In their study, they extend the PPM framework and the migration theory. After the analysis was done, some of the results were: intention to migrate had a strong and significant effect on migration behavior and switching cost was negatively associated with migration intention. Unfortunately, there were some unexpected results such as perceived complementarity and similarity did not significantly affect the user’s migration decision. Also, perceived compatibility plays a role in the context of involuntary switching to IM services. This result indicated users care more about the compatible services and applications rather than other criteria in IM services. Besides, regarding the mooring effects, users did not take the effort of creating new contacts list and notifying others about the migration to other IM service necessarily. To conclude, the effort is less likely to be a burden to users. Lastly, users tend to regret in dissatisfaction with its information quality rather than dissatisfaction with its technical quality. A migration plan with uncertain information and less convenient technical support may trigger user’s regret which eventually led them away from staying connected in the specific IM service.

Conclusion

To wrap it all up, MSN Messenger was unable to compete with its competitors, including smartphones, social networks, even other IM services such as Yahoo! Messenger and AIM. This happened due to MSN Messenger’s lack of innovation to keep improving and could not able to compete with the upcoming technologies, especially when smartphone emerged which WhatsApp took a big role in it. Even though Microsoft migration plan for users were to utilize Skype, this only affects one-third of the total number MSN Messenger’s users back in 2009. Microsoft’s alternative plan to drive users stay in their communication platform also defeated by other platforms, such as WhatsApp and Google Hangouts.

References

Bansal, H. S., Taylor, S. F., & James, Y. S. (2005). Migrating to New Service Providers: Toward a Unifying Framework of Consumers’ Switching Behaviors. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 96.
DeCarlo, M. (2010, February 10). Windows Live Messenger Reaches 300 Million People. Retrieved from Windows Live Messenger reaches 300 million people: https://www.techspot.com/news/37887-windows-live-messenger-reaches-300-million-people.html
Deyermenjian, K. (2013, July). Google Hangouts Vs. Skype: A Comparative Look. Retrieved from A comparative look: https://searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com/feature/Google-Hangouts-vs-Skype-A-comparative-look
Engel, K. (2018, April 22). Retrieved from Your Favorite Messenger Disappeared? Find Out What Happened to AIM, ICQ and More.: https://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2014/10/22/instant-messengers/
Evers, J. (2002, February 11). MSN Messenger Vulnerable Through Internet Explorer Bug. Retrieved from https://www.computerworld.com/article/2586452/msn-messenger-vulnerable-through-internet-explorer-bug.html
Fang, Y.-H., & Tang, K. (2016). Involuntary Migration in Cyberspaces. The case of MSN messenger discontinuation.
Izquierdo, R. (2018, December 20). Msn Messenger: Nostalgic Messaging. Retrieved from WHAT HAPPENED WITH MSN MESSENGER? LET’S FIND OUT: https://blog.pandorafms.org/what-happened-with-msn-messenger/
Nay, J. R. (2013, January 10). Windows Live Messenger Through the Years: A Retrospective. Retrieved from A Retrospective: https://www.trutower.com/2013/01/10/microsoft-windows-live-messenger-retrospective/
Statista. (2019). Top 10 Instant Messengers Based on Number of Users Worldwide from 2006 to 2010 (in millions). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/264840/top-10-instant-messengers-ranked-by-number-of-users/

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Case Study: MSN Messenger Discontinuation

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