Aug 27, 2007

Time to Boycott Yahoo! Messenger India?

Funny that I noticed it, but Yahoo! seem to have got rid of the voice-chat feature in the Indian version of their Instant Messenger program. Here's the features list of the Yahoo! Messenger (U.S. version):

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Notice how the PC-to-PC voice-call feature is prominently mentioned. Now look at a similar screen-shot of the features list of the Yahoo! Messenger (India version):

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Viola! The PC-to-PC voice-call feature is simply missing here. Nice piece of magic there, Yahoo!

Can someone from Yahoo! India please explain why this feature does not exist in the Indian version of their IM? Since PC-to-PC voice calls do not fall under the category of VoIP, I am sure no legal issues are causing this discrimination. Both Google Talk as well as Skype seem to offer this feature regardless of the country of origin of the user.

So Yahoo! Messenger (India) users, isn't this enough to give a boot to Yahoo! Messenger and switch to Google Talk / Skype?