Originally posted by johnnyjibbs
Yes I know, MSN is included with Office because it's removing an obstacle (i.e. having to download it) to get MSN onto your system, just as Windows users who try to download QuickTime tend to end up with iTunes as well - Apple wants iTunes on as many Windows systems as possible.
However, as someone else said, no-one is going to use MSN messenger if they have to pay for it and I can't see much of a market for their MSN subscription service. It would be nice from Microsoft's point of view to get some earnings from it but, at the end of the day, that's unlikely to happen but they are still content on getting their programs used by as many people as possible. They would like the MSN messenger standard to become THE standard, not for people to use AOL or Yahoo. This may then also entice people onto profitable software, such as Office or Vitual PC (although, this is Microsoft software - probably not!)