Thursday, March 28

This is the virtual cemetery of products abandoned by Microsoft



Microsoft’s virtual graveyard has gone viral thanks to the multitude of now-defunct projects you can check out, including apps, services, and hardware.

The website Killed by Microsoft it is designed to keep an eye on these historical projects and is well worth a visit, especially if you are an enthusiast of Microsoft’s historical software. In fact, there are some projects that have recently been abandoned and others that already have an expiration date.

Killed by Microsoft describes itself as “a free and open source list of discontinued Microsoft services, products, devices, and applications” what it pretends to be “An unbiased source of information on the history of Microsoft’s dead projects.”

Currently the project It has the staggering figure of 70 discarded products, we leave you some of the most outstanding.

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Silverlight (2005-2021)

It has been 6 months since he disappeared. Microsoft Silverlight (or simply Silverlight) was a runtime environment for writing and running Internet applications, similar to Adobe Flash. She was about 16 years old.

Silverlight was never available for Edge, Opera and Safari and when Chrome and Firefox stopped supporting the latest version (Internet Explorer only), its days were numbered. Instead, the websites used HTML5.

Lumia (2011-2017)

Phased out over 4 years ago, Microsoft Lumia (formerly Nokia Lumia Series) was a line of mobile devices that was originally designed and marketed by Nokia and later by Microsoft Mobile.

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He was almost 6 years old.

Sales declined sharply after the introduction of Windows 10 in 2015 and Microsoft stopped selling briefly Lumia devices from the Microsoft Store in late 2016.

Existing devices would only receive bug fixes and security updates, ending for the latest devices in December 2019.

Messenger (1999-2013)

After 13 years in operation, in 2013 he finally said goodbye. MSN Messenger later renamed as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client developed by Microsoft.

The client was first released as the MSN Messenger Service on July 22, 1999, and was marketed under the MSN brand until 2005, when it was renamed Windows Live.

In 2013, the product was discontinued and Microsoft began cutting service to existing customers..

It remained active in China for another 18 months, ending operations there on October 31, 2014.

Windows IoT Core (2016-2020)

Removed over 1 year ago, Windows 10 IoT Core, formerly Windows Embedded, was an embedded operating system for smaller, lower cost industrial devices, also provided free for use on devices like the Raspberry Pi for hobbyist use.

It was more than 4 years old.

Microsoft Band (2014-2019), the Microsoft Zune (2006-2011), and the Microsoft Kinect (2010-2017)

Eliminated nearly 3 years ago, the Microsoft Band was a line of smart wristbands with smartwatch and activity/fitness tracker features. He was over 4 years old.

In 2014, Microsoft announced what would be its first device dedicated to sports quantification, a Microsoft Band that, far from being up to the competition, had a very poor reception. However, just as the company was already working on a third version of Microsoft Band it was finally cancelled.

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As for Microsoft’s Zune, a line of portable media players from 10 years ago that were selling well, it couldn’t compete with Apple’s iPod. The Zune was good. But not enough.

Kinect finally disappeared more than 4 years ago (7 years old). It was a line of motion-sensing input devices for Windows and Xbox consoles.

That peripheral that seemed to be a real revolution for more immersive games, turned out to be a lie.

Wunderlist (2010-2020)

Killed almost 2 years ago, Wunderlist was a cloud task management app, Acquired by Microsoft on June 1, 2015. It was over 9 years old.

On May 6, 2020 this app finally disappeared. The most convenient way to quit Wunderlist was to import your to-do items into another app.

Of course, Microsoft promoted its other app, Microsoft To Do. And it is that, when Microsoft bought Wunderlist in 2015, it announced its plans to close the application, but not before taking all its best features and recreating them elsewhere.

Skype for Business (Oct 2025)

Skype for Business (formerly Microsoft Lync and Office Communicator) was a Messaging and video calling business software application developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Office suite.

According to Microsoft, Skype for Business will be discontinued in 2025. This means that Skype for Business Online will no longer be officially supported by Microsoft.

Therefore, all Microsoft partners providing Skype for Business Online solutions and add-ons will also no longer be supported.

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In September 2017, Microsoft announced that it would phase out Skype for Business in favor of Microsoft Teams. The Microsoft Teams FAQ pages explain why this change is happening.



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