Microsoft Messenger for Mac gets a new version
Microsoft Messenger recently got updated to version 7.
Yahoo! has had a native messenger client for Mac with audio and video support for a while. You can use iChat on Mac OS 10.5 to connect to your Google Talk account; albeit with a catch – audio and video chat works only if your buddy on the other side is also using iChat on a Mac (although the recently introduced voice and video chat browser plugin for gmail does address this limitation somewhat).
Now the newest version of Microsoft Messenger does support audio and video chat if you are connecting to the Office Communication Server service inside your corporate network but it doesn’t support audio or video if are connecting to the ‘public’ Windows Live service.
Microsoft Messenger is a free download. Get it from Microsoft’s download page. Given the lack of audio and video support, chances are that most of us will stick to the swiss army knife of messenger clients – Adium.
One thing that Microsoft badly needs to work on is a cohesive branding for their chat client. Depending on which Microsoft site you are browsing, you can be looking at Windows Messenger, MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger or Microsoft Messenger – all connecting to the same MSN Messenger (or is it now Windows Live?) service and/or your corporate Office Communications Server service.