Microsoft is dropping Facebook and Google support for Outlook

Microsoft is going to remove support for Facebook and Google chat on its Outlook.com email service sometime next month according to a recent announcement. While Microsoft is dropping support for Google due to the fact that the company discontinued Google Talk’s chat protocol, it’s unclear why Microsoft is dropping support for Facebook as well. 

Microsoft is revealing today that it plans to kill off Google and Facebook chat from its Outlook.com email service “within the next couple of weeks.” In an email to Outlook.com customers, Microsoft says it’s removing Google Talk integration “due to Google’s decision to discontinue the chat protocol used by the Google Talk platform.” Microsoft will also be discontinuing support for Facebook chat in Outlook.com, but the company has not revealed why it’s killing off the social network’s chat integration. Facebook and Google services for Outlook.com also integrate with the people feature of the webmail service and keep contacts up-to-date, and Microsoft says this feature will be unaffected by the decision to discontinue the chat options.