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Microsoft Releases Messenger for Mac 7
by , 2:50 PM EDT, April 29th, 2008
The Microsoft Mac Business Unit (Mac BU) announced on Tuesday that they have released Microsoft Messenger for Mac 7 for both personal and corporate use. The Corporate version includes multi-party audio and video use.
The personal edition features new support for Mac OS X Bonjour instant networking technology, a new contact list search tool, and the ability to give contacts a nickname for easy recognition, even when their screen name changes.
"Corporate Mac users can take better advantage of their corporate network with increased support for Office Communications Server 2007 making it easier to search a corporate address book from within Messenger as well as new support for Mac OS X Bonjour instant networking technology. Corporate users can also participate in instant face-to-face meetings with co-workers using multi-party audio and video conferencing. Additionally, with enhanced presence features, co-workers can quickly see each other’s availability to communicate," Microsoft told TMO.
A Microsoft spokesperson also told TMO that they will have more details to share in the coming months on audio and video support in the personal use edition.
Messenger 6.0.3 was supplied with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. At one time, it was unclear whether Microsoft would continue support for Messenger, but the company always insisted that it would continue to develop the product. Messenger 7 went into private beta in November 2007.
Messenger for Mac 7 is a Universal Application, and the size is 21 MB. Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later is required. The application is free.
Observer Comments
I'm curious to see whether there is any chance at all that this would unseat Skype as the most popular audio/video communications tool for Mac users. While many of us use iChat with other Mac users, due to iChat's heavy port requirements, we often default to Skype when behind a corporate firewall, or when communicating with Windows users. I still find it quite surprising that AIM (iChat's networking protocol) is still the most widely used IM protocol; I know of no Windows users (outside of the AOL walled garden) who have tried and continued to use AIM for Windows. When A/V conferencing with Windows people, I always end up using Skype.
With MSN messenger so popular among third-world countries (as well as 'emerging markets' in Europe), I wouldn't be surprised if the availability of A/V on MSN for Mac moves it up a notch or two.
MacBU needs to give up on Messenger and fix Office 2008. There are major problems that plague it and time is ticking.
1. Files in .docx when transferred from a Mac to PC (Office 2007) drop out spaces and characters in sentences. This renders the .docx format unusable and therefore worthless. No, I'm not alone, it's been recorded and reported across many units at my university.
2. Mail merges create documents which screw up addresses on approximately half of each of the resulting documents.
3. Embedded audio files in Word files still do not properly function on the Macintosh platform.
4. The whole Visual Basic debacle.
Users are reverting to Office 2004, and better yet, OpenOffice. Microsoft is slowly chipping away at their own relevance. (and they're delaying XP SP3 AGAIN)
Something tells me Redmond is not a happy place these days.
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