Messenger has always been focused on helping you keep in touch with the people who matter most. We believe you should be able to choose the services you want to use and be able to access them from all of your devices, in a seamlessly integrated experience. And on your phone, that integrated experience should really just bring texting and IM together, so there’s only one place to go when you want to quickly chat with someone.

• Choose the services you want – More than 300 million people actively use Messenger to connect to people every month. The vast majority of those Messenger users are also members of other services like Facebook and Yahoo, where they also have connections they build and deepen every day. Because of this, we’ve steadily connected Messenger to other services so that you can use Messenger to sign in to the services you choose and chat with who you want.
• Access them from all your devices – Similarly, Messenger has been available for many years on a wide range of devices, using applications built both by Microsoft and through our broad partner program. In addition to the classic Messenger desktop programs for the PC and Mac, Messenger is built into the web on Hotmail, SkyDrive, and various 3^rd party sites throughout the world. Also, Messenger applications are available for most mobile phones and mobile operators around the world, including Windows Phone 7, iPhone, Android, Blackberry OS, Nokia Symbian, Samsung Bada, and many more.
• In a beautiful experience that brings text messaging and IM together – We love that Messenger already helps people access the services they want, from the devices they choose, but we’ve also heard you asking for a seamless, built-in Messenger experience on your Windows Phone. When you’re on your phone, you want one convenient place that lets you chat with all your contacts, so IM should be seamlessly integrated into how you already use text messaging. 

Together with the Windows Phone team, we’re proud to announce that the next release of Windows Phone will come with a seamless, built-in texting and IM experience powered by Windows Live Messenger. Today, Andy Lees, Achim Berg, and Joe Belfiore announced the next release of Windows Phone, code named Mango, designed from the ground up to be the world’s best phone for connecting to and sharing with people, on your terms. As a key part of that promise, we’d like to show you some of what the integrated Messenger experience will offer:

• It’s not an app—it’s built into the Messaging hub – The hub experiences like Messaging, People, and more on Windows Phone are a powerful way to connect and share on your terms. On Windows Phone Mango release, Messenger is a built-in part of the Messaging hub, making it easier and faster to access in the most intuitive place. There’s no app to download and no separate experience to navigate.

• Messenger chat – Chat comes with all the best features of classic Messenger like IM and presence, emoticons, and MPOP (multiple points of presence, meaning you can be online in Hotmail and on your phone at the same time). Just click on the Messaging hub and your friends’ list, personal presence, and more are right at your fingertips. It works seamlessly with any other Messenger experience your friends are using, whether it’s on the PC, in Hotmail, or on their other devices.

• Connected services, starting with Facebook Chat – If you’re one of the more than 25 million people who’ve already connected Facebook to Windows Live, then you’re all set to use Facebook Chat from the new Windows Phone. If you haven’t yet, just quickly connect it from your phone and you’re good to go.

• IM and SMS in one easy place with seamless switching – The Messaging hub is one easy place for your IM and SMS chat threads and conversation history, which appear in one simple list. When you start a new thread, Windows Phone automatically picks the richest service for you to chat with your friend.

For example, if we’re both online in Messenger, it will use Messenger IM so that we can share rich photos and more, but if we’re Facebook friends or just have each other’s phone numbers, it will automatically select the right service for our conversation. Of course, you can always choose (and easily switch to) the service you want to use for any given conversation based on presence, network availability, cost, and personal preferences.

• Photo sharing locally or from the cloud – As you IM, you can easily insert photos into your conversation to bring it to life. Take a new photo right now to show the smile on your face or the quirky scene across the street, pick from the camera roll on your phone, or share from any of your albums on SkyDrive or Facebook.

• Group chat – Since Messenger is about friends and families, we also wanted to make sure you can connect in groups.

• Voice to text – Say what you want to say in your own voice (and avoid texting while driving). The Messaging hub comes with built-in voice recognition, letting you speak your next message whether you’re using IM, SMS, or both.

Once again, we couldn’t be more excited for the upcoming release of Windows Phone, which will be the world’s best phone to connect and share with your people on your terms. This makes it the best phone for the 300 million Messenger users around the world. Windows Phone Mango release provides a seamless, built-in chat and messaging experience powered by Messenger, building upon our continual efforts to let you choose the services you want, to access them from all of your devices, and to do it from beautifully integrated experiences that work the way you do.

Stay tuned, keep using Messenger, and we hope you’ll enjoy the new experience in the fall.

Jeff Kunins
Group Program Manager, Windows Live Messenger and Connect

I’m pleased to join the Office Web Apps team in announcing some new features available in Office Web Apps on SkyDrive. After our global rollout of the Office Web Apps to more than 190 countries in March, we’ve continued to work on the Office Web Apps, and we’re rolling out some nice enhancements today, including Excel features like AutoSum and formula assistance, and PowerPoint perks like the ability to change the design theme from within the PowerPoint Web App.

For more info about today’s update, check out Andrew Howard’s post on the Office Web Apps blog. And stay tuned for more new features in SkyDrive and the Office Web Apps in the coming months!

- Omar Shahine, Group Program Manager, Windows Live SkyDrive

We wanted to let you know about a new site called the Windows Experts Community.  The Windows Experts Community has a number of great resources, but of particular interest to those of you who use Windows Live is the new forum on communicating, sharing and synchronizing with Windows Live, where enthusiasts and experts can talk about all the ways that you're using Windows Live, about new developments in the industry, or whatever else is on your mind. 

Microsoft Answers and the Windows Live Help Center will continue to be the best places to discuss support issues and to get help, and this blog will continue to provide you with updates on the latest happenings around Windows Live, but the new Windows Experts Community will complement those sites with deeper, community-led discussions on a variety of topics around Windows and Windows Live.

Since we've only just launched the site, please be patient with any initial hiccups that you may see. And you can learn more about the Windows Experts Community in Paul Donnelly’s post on the Extreme Windows Blog.

Dharmesh Mehta
Director, Windows Live Product Management