8 ms·

See Skype -> Lync -> Skype -> Teams for example

giancarlostoro 7y ago
You mean MS Comic Chat -> MSN -> MSN Messenger -> Windows Live Messenger -> Lync / Skype -> Teams I miss MSN so much. It was simple, worked with Pidgin, now I don't even know what new IM services even work with Pidgin in 2019. In a perfect world I shoulda been able to use Slack, Discord etc on Pidgin still.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  There is a universal law which dictates that messaging clients must get worse. There is no shipping messaging client that is a material improvement over what was available in 2000.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I think you can use those in Pidgin? https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins
  - thomasahle 7y ago
    Wow! I was never aware of those plugins! Can I use them on Android?
  - bigbaguette 7y ago
    wow just realized pidgin seems instagram-capable https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-instagram https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-instagram
- kroltan 7y ago
  It is very interesting that concepts like custom emoticons, group voice chat, group chat adminstration, message formatting, all existed in MSN, and all but disappeared from publicly-popular products until Slack, and Discord came up. Skype, when WLM was shut down, was _very_ primitive in its communication options, let alone moderation tools. Sure, things like TeamSpeak and whatnot existed for organized voice chat, but that's not something my mother would be able to use. Skype didn't even have group voice calls back then, let alone video. Emoticons are still limited to the standard ones (or nowadays, seasonal sponsored emoticons), group chat moderation is limited to text commands with no accompanying visual interface (it is not even possible to show who is a group's moderator or owner). Heck, Discord and alike still don't even allow multi-window messaging! Not to mention the client itself never lasted more than a couple years without a full interface redesign. Of course, in an ideal world I'd love for some sort of standard interface that allowed me to locally confederate all my services, but sadly Slack and Discord both have TOS rules that require the use of _their_ client, even though their bot APIs are basically feature-complete.
  - dspillett 7y ago
    > Existed, died, resurrected There are quite a few examples of this, both industry wide and specifically from MS. Sometimes it is due to the first implementation being bad, sometimes it is that some part of the tech simply isn't quite ready (or isn't yet quite cheap enough for mass adoption), sometimes it is solving a problem that at the time is very niche but later becomes a more common need. Think tablets. Anyone else remember MS's big "pen computing" push with tablet & hybrid style PCs that were too heavy, ran too warm, and didn't have batteries that lasted long enough? Or in a similar vain, more general and arguably more successful in their time, PDAs which died out but our phones basically now fill the same role.
- sebazzz 7y ago
  Isn't Lync based on Office Communicator?
  - couradical 7y ago
    Yeah, the “enterprise” product lineage is more Live Communicator -> Office Communicator -> Lync -> Skype for Business (kinda direct link to, even though it’s SaaS only) -> Teams
    - giancarlostoro 7y ago
      From what I hear the Lead Architect of Teams used to work on Lync. So I can easily agree that Teams is a child of Lync. Some things are improved though I hear a lot of people having issues with Teams sadly.
      - thrower123 7y ago
        Teams is supposed to be the replacement. It's kind of trash as an instant messenger client, for entirely interface-related reasons - they built it in Electron, so it is difficult to pop out separate windows for individual chats, so one is stuck with tabbed soup. Although it's probably the best voip and video conferencing software they have put out.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
thrower123 7y ago
The choice to rebrand Lync as Skype for Business after the Skype aquisition has caused endless confusion. Skype and Skype for Business are almost completely unrelated, and barely interoperate.

You mean MS Comic Chat -> MSN -> MSN Messenger -> Windows Live Messenger -> Lync / Skype -> Teams I miss MSN so much. It was simple, worked with Pidgin, now I don't even know what new IM services even work with Pidgin in 2019. In a perfect world I shoulda been able to use Slack, Discord etc on Pidgin still.

Spooky23 7y ago
There is a universal law which dictates that messaging clients must get worse. There is no shipping messaging client that is a material improvement over what was available in 2000.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I think you can use those in Pidgin? https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins
- thomasahle 7y ago
  Wow! I was never aware of those plugins! Can I use them on Android?
- bigbaguette 7y ago
  wow just realized pidgin seems instagram-capable https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-instagram https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-instagram
kroltan 7y ago
It is very interesting that concepts like custom emoticons, group voice chat, group chat adminstration, message formatting, all existed in MSN, and all but disappeared from publicly-popular products until Slack, and Discord came up. Skype, when WLM was shut down, was _very_ primitive in its communication options, let alone moderation tools. Sure, things like TeamSpeak and whatnot existed for organized voice chat, but that's not something my mother would be able to use. Skype didn't even have group voice calls back then, let alone video. Emoticons are still limited to the standard ones (or nowadays, seasonal sponsored emoticons), group chat moderation is limited to text commands with no accompanying visual interface (it is not even possible to show who is a group's moderator or owner). Heck, Discord and alike still don't even allow multi-window messaging! Not to mention the client itself never lasted more than a couple years without a full interface redesign. Of course, in an ideal world I'd love for some sort of standard interface that allowed me to locally confederate all my services, but sadly Slack and Discord both have TOS rules that require the use of _their_ client, even though their bot APIs are basically feature-complete.
- dspillett 7y ago
  > Existed, died, resurrected There are quite a few examples of this, both industry wide and specifically from MS. Sometimes it is due to the first implementation being bad, sometimes it is that some part of the tech simply isn't quite ready (or isn't yet quite cheap enough for mass adoption), sometimes it is solving a problem that at the time is very niche but later becomes a more common need. Think tablets. Anyone else remember MS's big "pen computing" push with tablet & hybrid style PCs that were too heavy, ran too warm, and didn't have batteries that lasted long enough? Or in a similar vain, more general and arguably more successful in their time, PDAs which died out but our phones basically now fill the same role.
sebazzz 7y ago
Isn't Lync based on Office Communicator?
- couradical 7y ago
  Yeah, the “enterprise” product lineage is more Live Communicator -> Office Communicator -> Lync -> Skype for Business (kinda direct link to, even though it’s SaaS only) -> Teams
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    From what I hear the Lead Architect of Teams used to work on Lync. So I can easily agree that Teams is a child of Lync. Some things are improved though I hear a lot of people having issues with Teams sadly.
    - thrower123 7y ago
      Teams is supposed to be the replacement. It's kind of trash as an instant messenger client, for entirely interface-related reasons - they built it in Electron, so it is difficult to pop out separate windows for individual chats, so one is stuck with tabbed soup. Although it's probably the best voip and video conferencing software they have put out.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

thrower123 7y ago

The choice to rebrand Lync as Skype for Business after the Skype aquisition has caused endless confusion. Skype and Skype for Business are almost completely unrelated, and barely interoperate.