In a mail to its messenger users, Microsoft has announced that it is going to make an upgrade from Messenger to Skype on April 8th. It had previously announced that the upgrade would take place on March 15th.
This move is considered as a step to retire the Messenger globally except for in China.
In order to continue chatting with your Messenger contacts, users will simply have to upgrade to the latest version of Skype and sign in using a Microsoft Account.
By signing in the contacts will remain same as before and users will be able to make video calls and instant messages as they previously used to do.
By upgrading, Skype users will be able to send instant messages, share files and contacts and make group video calls to over 10 friends at once.
This upgrade will be available on iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone 8.
Once upgraded, users of messengers on Windows and Mac desktops will be able to sign in but only after upgrading to Skype.
A notification will appear on signing in and if users continue, they will be taken through the installer flow that will lead to install Skype and automatically uninstall Messenger at the same time.
Microsoft purchased Skype for $8.5 billion in May 2011.
It was subsequently integrated with Facebook and other platforms, which accounted for its ever-growing popularity.
