Yahoo has stopped developing Yahoo Messenger for Vista and it is no longer available on Yahoo’s servers. Well, this is pretty old news as Yahoo announced this on October 24th, 2008. I’m writing this post to express my anguish on this decision.

I am disappointed and shocked at this move by Yahoo.  According to Yahoo, they want to concentrate on one single version for Windows. Can they explain what  they mean by “concentrating on one single version”? Is Yahoo’s developer team so incompetent that they don’t know WPF applications can also run on Windows XP SP2+ with .Net 3 framework installed or they simply don’t know how to make WPF applications?

Yahoo Messenger 9 is the only version you can download for Windows now. Oh wait a minute! Is it even worth downloading? Yahoo Messenger 9 is one of the ugliest applications developed for Windows. I was desperately waiting for the Vista version in order to get rid of Yahoo Messenger 9 and then suddenly Yahoo announces the untimely death of the Vista version.

It is pretty much obvious from the comments at the blog post, which announced the end of Vista version, that people loved the Vista version and those comments  made me write this post. (They closed comments on that blog post today.)

A comment by a user on the Yahoo blog:

It’s a sad reflection on Yahoo! that they felt they had to do this. YM4V was certainly innovative and could have easily been tweaked to work with Windows 7 when it’s finally released.

The approach taken by Yahoo!, is understandable if you believe the line that they want one app which will work across all MS platforms. I don’t. Although they were onto a winner, I believe this decision came about because their finances are hurting right now due to their lower than expected revenue earnings. Reports also abound of a round of staff cuts – on top of the one earlier this year.

C’mon Yahoo! – be honest. Your failure to merge with MS (due to your unreasonable expectations) has hurt you and is likely to continue doing so. Time for some serious changes at board level!

Stop working on other MS OS’s and concentrate on Vista, using it as a springboard for W7. YM4V was way ahead of anything else available and it reflects badly on the company to finally admit they’ve pulled the plug (development stopped a long time ago didn’t it?) and will also do absolutely nothing for investor confidence.

How many more bad moves are you to going make?

Should I discontinue the use of Yahoo Messenger and add my Yahoo contacts on Windows Live Messenger? I’ll seriously consider this way of protesting against this decision of Yahoo. What do you think?

Don’t say- Goodbye, Yahoo Messenger for Vista.

Do say- Goodbye, Yahoo Messenger.

EDIT- I’ve uploaded the last version of Yahoo Messenger for Vista (30/6/2008), digitally signed by Yahoo and virus free in a zipped file. It’s an approx. 10 MB of download:

Download standalone installer of Yahoo Messenger for Vista (Beta) (Link updated)