Windows live VoIP service in trouble

Microsoft has decided to terminate its Windows Live VoIP service that was being provided so far with partnership with verizon. Not sure if VoIM is generating enough revenue for some of these IM vendors. Yahoo outsourced their yahoo messenger Voice connectivity to Jajah. Google has no interest in supporting Voice calls to landline or mobile from Gtalk. AOL VoIP is not doing anything good to prove things wrong.

The service shall be terminated on the following dates
• EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) - July 15th 2008,
• USA - August 31st 2008.

Well, it looks Microsoft has not yet decided on a successor to Version Web calling in Windows Live messenger. Iam not sure how much money these IM vendors are generating through VoIM service. We all know skype has been making good revenue from its VoIM feature. In fact this is the biggest revenue generation feature for skype. With their skypeout and skypein, skype has been successful in cashing its huge user base.

So where does this leave Microsoft in this whole voice and messaging game. Well, another interesting product that Microsoft is working currently is called echoes. According to Mary Jo Foley from zdnet , come this summer, Microsoft plans to announce echoes service platform for Telco providers. I would still bet on other platform providers like ribbit, jajah, broadsoft, alcatel/lucent than Microsoft. We love/hate Microsoft has an OS platform and desktop apps provider. Service platform doesn’t glue well here. Om has some insight on this

Here are some highlights of echoes platform:
• Echoes will assign a local mobile number to each Windows Live contact.
• Via its Address Book sync capabilities, Echoes will push these new contacts into any mobile phone (no client required)
• The user will be able to compose an SMS or place a voice call to these contacts
• Echoes will ensure text messages are delivered to Windows Live contacts as chat conversations, and replies will be sent back from Messenger as SMS
• Voice calls can be connected through Echoes directly from the mobile to the Windows Live Messenger user’s PC
• As the mobile user will appear always “online” to friends (using Echoes client emulation server), conversations also will be able to start from the Windows Live cloud, pushed to the mobile as SMS