Windows Live SMS alerts feature to be discontinued May 31

Windows Live has had its SMS alerts feature since the early days, when Microsoft rebranded MSN Alerts service to Windows Live in 2006. The service allowed you to subscribe to particular contents from various ... Read more »

Bing 411 to be discontinued on June 1st

For those in the United States, Microsoft operates a toll-free number called Bing 411 (1-800-BING-411 or 1-800-CALL-411), which allows users to conduct voice search using Tellme technologies. The service allow users to conduct local ... Read more »

Google Graveyard? Microsoft throws stones from its glass house

On Halloween, Tom Rizzo, a SharePoint Senior Director, poked some fun and threw some stones at rival Google, commenting on Google’s plan to retire Google Wave, and more.  He went so far as to ... Read more »

The end of the Zune player era, redux

Finally.  We don’t even want to go through the whole story again, it’s too embarrassing, but after a number of miscues, the Zune player has been (we hope) finally put to rest.  The notice ... Read more »

Zune now not dead, situation officially bizarre

What is wrong with these people?  Yesterday, after a comedy of errors and false starts, a Zune.net notice went up announcing that “we will no longer be producing Zune players”.  Finally, we thought (and ... Read more »

Zune Player: Still dead

Obviously this should come as no surprise to Microsoft watchers, but the Zune  players were finally laid to rest today in a notice on Zune.net: We recently announced that, going forward, Windows Phone will ... Read more »

Windows Live Gallery retired

Our friend (and now MVP colleague) Travis Pope just alerted us that the Windows Live Gallery (gallery.live.com), at one time a  repository for gadgets, emoticons, and plugins for Spaces, Writer, Messenger, and more, is ... Read more »

Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner finally discontinued

Back in November 2008, Microsoft discontinued their subscription-based anti-virus software Windows Live OneCare and replaced it with the free Microsoft Security Essentials tool. However, one of it’s closely related product – Windows Live OneCare ... Read more »

A Live Mesh beta deadpool reminder

An email reminder was sent out today by Windows Live to Live Mesh beta participants, reminding them that the beta will be completely shut down on March 31, and any data stored on the ... Read more »

Windows Live Spaces to close March 16th, remember?

The Windows Live Team sent out an email reminder today that Windows Live Spaces will be closing for good on March 16th.  The timing has been announced before, but it’s getting down to crunch ... Read more »