MSN Messenger for Mac - Your Opinion!

[rjames]

Please help us get MSN Messenger for Mac updated with new features and functionality on par with the windows version, all we need is for you to take a moment to sign the petition at http://www.rjt.cjb.net/messengerformac

If you would like to help out with this, please pass that URL on to as many people as possible, the more people that sign the higher the profile of the petition becomes and the more attention it will get.

We need to increase awareness to a point where MS will have no choice but to do something, it is possible we just need your help. We currently have around 8,300 signatures so far so please just take a few seconds to sign it.

Your help is much appreciated!

 

[MikeLaRiviere]

It's a Business

RJames, you have to realize that Microsoft is a business concerned with protecting its own products. Perhaps Microsoft's reasoning is that if one is overly concerned with instant messaging featuers, one will use Windows to take advantage of such features. It doesn't make any sense for Microsoft to support Mac users; we should be happy that it even makes Office for Mac.

Microsoft doesn't "owe" Mac users anything; we are stakeholders, not stockholders, and corporations are in the business of pleasing the stockholders. In the United States, AOL and AIM are far more popular than MSN; Microsoft is a US company, and the US constitutes the largest share of internet (and PC) users in the world.

For advanced functionality, look at Apple's included solution, iChat. If your friends use MSN, use MSN with them. If you want advanced functions, ask them to use AIM. If you're still not happy, use Windows for MSN Messenger.

Mike LaRiviere

 

[MikeLaRiviere]

Addendum

By the way, if Microsoft does choose to update MSN Messenger, please post this fact, as I look forward to one-way video conferencing (unless this feature already exists).

Mike LaRiviere

 

[BornAgainMac]

I am sorry but iChat is the best chat software out there. Perhaps it doesn't support all the different protocols but the video and voice chat is 2nd to none. It doesn't have confusing extra features like weather, traffic reports, and ads. It focuses on chat and does it well. Those other features would be best implemented using dashboard in Tiger.

I use the limited Mac version of M$N Mess... to talk to my friends on that service. Apple took out the AIM logo out of the iChat icon with Tiger so perhaps iChat will support MSN in Tiger.

I think Microsoft is dying anyways. Windows users are not seeing huge changes in improvements either. Service Pack 2 for XP is going to break a lot of things in exchange for more security. It's a dead platform to me now with no future. Microsoft is the past and Apple is the future. Microsoft will be the next Quark. I can't believe I use to love Microsoft Windows and that company.

 

[adam1185]

just get adium for the time being

 

[rjames]

Correction

RJames, you have to realize that Microsoft is a business concerned with protecting its own products. Perhaps Microsoft's reasoning is that if one is overly concerned with instant messaging featuers, one will use Windows to take advantage of such features. It doesn't make any sense for Microsoft to support Mac users; we should be happy that it even makes Office for Mac.

Microsoft doesn't "owe" Mac users anything; we are stakeholders, not stockholders, and corporations are in the business of pleasing the stockholders. In the United States, AOL and AIM are far more popular than MSN; Microsoft is a US company, and the US constitutes the largest share of internet (and PC) users in the world.

For advanced functionality, look at Apple's included solution, iChat. If your friends use MSN, use MSN with them. If you want advanced functions, ask them to use AIM. If you're still not happy, use Windows for MSN Messenger.

Mike LaRiviere

I think you'll be interested to hear that the Macintosh Business Unit look at feedback and impliment features into MSN Messenger for Mac based on demand, if we can show them there is demand for those features then they will appear, that is the point of this petition.

To correct you on another note, the Macintosh Business Unit may be a Microsoft Department but it runs under contract that it makes software for Mac based on demand, not by Microsoft's rules. The Macintosh Business Unit is there to bring Microsoft Apps to the Macintosh platform based on demand for them. It is a completely separate entity of Microsoft and does not conform or run under the rest of the company, basically it's is own business, and they run under a separate mission statement which they stick to.

So all those people out there that including yourself saying that Microsoft is doing this to please their stockholders or influence people to switch to windows is completely false. You really need to read up on a few things at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/community/community.aspx?pid=whoweare and get your fact's straight!

MSN Messenger for Mac is in NO way associated or linked with Microsoft, MSN or any other Windows development applications, it is like Office 2004 for Mac - strictly a Macintosh built and based application made by the Macintosh Business Unit.

 

[7on]

I am sorry but iChat is the best chat software out there. Perhaps it doesn't support all the different protocols but the video and voice chat is 2nd to none. It doesn't have confusing extra features like weather, traffic reports, and ads. It focuses on chat and does it well. Those other features would be best implemented using dashboard in Tiger.

I use the limited Mac version of M$N Mess... to talk to my friends on that service. Apple took out the AIM logo out of the iChat icon with Tiger so perhaps iChat will support MSN in Tiger.

I think Microsoft is dying anyways. Windows users are not seeing huge changes in improvements either. Service Pack 2 for XP is going to break a lot of things in exchange for more security. It's a dead platform to me now with no future. Microsoft is the past and Apple is the future. Microsoft will be the next Quark. I can't believe I use to love Microsoft Windows and that company.

MSn will not be a part of iChat in Tiger, but Jabber is. I believe to either add-on or to replace Rendezvous (Rend doesn't work outside of subnets but Jabber does). To use MSN, iChat would have to have extra fees. Why do you think Jag users had to pay for iChat 2.0? For the license to use AIM. The cost is added into OS purchases.

 

[FelixDerKater]

7on:

I don't see why AOL would charge anything for that, since they are saving money by not having to develop for the Mac platform... We've had about 3 years now of the same official AIM client with only various minor updates.

 

[MikeLaRiviere]

Rjames, again, not to step on your petition, I must take issue with the points on which you believe you have corrected me. I must point out that Microsoft's Mac division is indeed part of Microsoft. Just as Banc of America Securities is "separate" from Bank of America, it really is part of the corporation. When Microsoft's Mac division states that it responds to demand, it is referring to the fact that as long as the Macintosh platform exists, the division will create Mac software. I am sure that the unit seeks to produce quality software for the Mac, and I agree that a full featured MSN Messenger would fall under the category of "quality software." However, the Mac division is expendible, and as such, it is not Microsoft's top priority. Microsoft's contract with Apple has expired, yet it continues to develop for Apple a) out of courtesy and b) because Apple does hold some market share.

Mike LaRiviere

 

[Nermal]

If you want advanced functions, ask them to use AIM.

People don't like to change. All my friends use MSN, none of them use AIM. Therefore I also use MSN. Microsoft shouldn't deny us some of the features just because we're using a different platform. Currently, installing Office allows you to remove advertising from MSN. I would be perfectly happy if videoconferencing etc. are also implemented in the same way - pay for Office and get a full-featured messaging application.