The new Intel-friendly MSN Messenger client for Mac will be released in the next couple of weeks, says Microsoft, but audio and video is another year and another version away.UPDATED: Now with screenshots!
Microsoft is on target to release version 6.0 of its Macintosh instant messenger client by early October, in some respects bettering Windows Live Messenger, but in the key areas of voice and video, staying a step behind.
"We'll be releasing Messenger for Mac 6 in the next couple of weeks" Mary Starman, group product manager for Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU) told me today in a briefing arranged during the Microsoft Hardware launch.
Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6 will be a Universal Binary, so it can take full advantage of Intel-powered Macs as well as older PowerPC models. It will communicate with Yahoo! Messenger users, and spellcheck outgoing messages, provide customised status messages, and allow you to roll-your-own emoticons.
It also has iTunes integration: you can now opt to let those in your contact list see what track you're currently listening to in iTunes. This mimics the interplay between Windows Live Messenger and Windows Media Player.
However, the two features which are perhaps the most requested and certainly the most noticeably missing from the Messenger:Mac mix -- audio and video chat -- remain on the to-do list for next year's Messenger 7 release.
The reason, Starman says, is Messenger's unique relationship with Microsoft's pair of very different IM protocols -- Windows Live Messenger for personal messaging and Live Communications Server for enterprise IM.
"AV is something that we have heard very loud and clear from our customers, and it's something that we are working on. We'd hoped to start our AV work sooner. But we support both the Windows Live Messenger platform and LCS. These use two completely different protocols for AV and porting either one of those over to the Mac OS is about a year and a half of developer time."
"The good news is that they're on a path to merge their AV infrastructure. Rather than just do one or just do the other and then end up with throw-away work after a year and a half of dev time, we're currently in the middle of doing AV porting for the merged protocol that they're both moving to".
In the meantime, Messenger 6 still manages to upstage its Windows counterpart in a few areas.
Spelling errors in outgoing messages are flagged with a squiggly red underline with a pop-up menu suggesting replacement words or offering to add words to your to personal dictionary.
However, while pedants may love it, this will probably end up as the first feature that most users disable. I doubt many people really care about having perfect spelling in on-the-fly instant message chats.
More appealing are the DIY emoticons which can be created by importing any suitably-sized GIF or JPG image. Specify a keystroke shortcut such as (mac) and the emoticon is ready to use, and is also added to the drop-down emoticon box.
The first time you use your DIY emoticon in a chat it takes a few seconds for the graphic to be sent and displayed in your friend's Messenger window, but thereafter it's just as immediate as any inbuilt emoticon. Other users can include your emoticon to their own library.
The Messenger 6 also separates the Personal and Corporate chat tabs from Messenger 5.x into two separate windows. The feature to synchronise their status, so that selecting Busy in one causes the other to change to the same status (if online), has been made more accessible.
IT administrators can also disable the Personal chat window. "This is really helpful for enterprise IT administrators because they can decide whether or not they want to deploy the personal client for their enterprise users" explained Sheridan Jones, Lead Marketing Manager for the MacBU.
Icons next to the names of contacts indicate if they belong to the networks of Windows Live Messenger or, in the Messenger 6 'personal' screen, Yahoo! Messenger. Access to AOL and thus Apple's iChat (the free .Mac iChat account is really just an AOL account in fancy dressing) remains limited to Enterprise users working via Live Communications Server.
David Flynn met with the MacBU team during his visit to Seattle for Microsoft's 2006 Hardware Launch as a guest of Microsoft.