Outlook.com Removing Support for Google and Facebook Chat

Outlook.com, Microsoft’s popular webmail service, has announced that it is to remove support for Facebook Chat and Google Talk. Currently, users of Outlook.com can access the two chat service within their account. Microsoft says that the feature will be removed “within the next couple of weeks.”

In an email to Outlook.com users, Microsoft made it clear why they’re removing Google Talk support, saying that it is “due to Google’s decision to discontinue the chat protocol used by the Google Talk platform.” However, they were less clear about Facebook, leaving no reason behind the change. The two features were highly requested and both subsequently very popular amongst users of Outlook.com and now Microsoft is suggesting that such users try out their own Skype functionality instead.

Outlook.com is the current evolution of Microsoft’s famous Hotmail; the highly popular webmail service that accompanied MSN throughout the early 90s and until the recent variant. Outlook was essentially the name to represent a substantial update to the service, adding more features, including the social functionality that the company is now removing.

Source: The Verge