Yesterday was Leah Pearlman's last day at Microsoft. Known to Messenger enthusiasts worldwide for her postings and updates on the Windows Live Messenger "MessengerSays" team blog and for bringing a personal side to Windows Live Messenger, she has left Microsoft and the Windows Live Messenger team after two years working for them.

Leah's farewell blog post
Exit interview with LiveSide

Leah, project manager of Windows Live Messenger has revealed some very exciting news the last couple of days. Ok, that is maybe a lie, but it is the most important news I need. Leah believes in getting your opinions, yours, yes you reading this right now she wants to feast on it and force her team to act upon it.

If you have not noticed Windows Live Messenger, may seem slightly buggy, wait you cannot help but not notice it. Well bugs are being fixed but due to such high demand from everyone, new features must be coded and bugs are usually dealt with at the end. However, we can be sure they will be fixed. Hurray!

Leah, is a busy girl and does so much for us, she is always organising ways to find our opinion, then has to manage her team as well. It must be a bucket of stress and we don't thank her enough. 3 cheers for Leah! I may even start a Leah fan club the way I am going on about her, but due to an interview from liveside.net, yesterday, we now know our view is important.

Also yesterday, was a huge chat with 120 people in the managed beta, throwing questions at the team, and some interesting news come out from that. For example, MSN Today will be returning, the next beta will be public (as if it does not seem that way already) and Yahoo Messenger compatibility is yet to be coded.

I highly suggest you listen to Leah's interview, it reveals a more personal side to Windows Live Messenger.

Listen to the interview

Well looks like our friends over at mess.be got their little exclusive, when Overdo asked members to throw questions at him, which would be forwarded to the project manager of Windows Live Messenger, Leah. The questions cannot be about feature requests as things can change and for obvious reasons nothing can be confirmed. Check it out. Not many questions have been posted, and your question may just be answered.

Ask your question

I feel like the press today, pulling a story out of one line but it is worthwhile news in my view. Ever since the latest Messenger Plus! 3.60, tabbed conversations have been included and they have been a huge success from the word go with the sleek design and easy functionality. The update made Messenger Plus! get 10 million users, which makes it a very impressive and the most popular MSN Messenger extension.

Patchou spent a long time coding the tabbed conversations feature and he should be extremely proud of his work, but it could all fall to pieces, as it will now be integrated into Windows Live Messenger.

Leah, Program manger said:


Clearly showing that tabbed conversations at some point will be coded into Windows Live Messenger. This is good news for people who do not know of Messenger Plus! But is it good for Patchou? It may save time coding the new Messenger Plus! Live but it is one major feature knocked off.

Source: MessengerSays Blog