Poncheg.com - State & Community News Blog

An e-mail snafu has led to the alleged leak of Microsoft’s decision to shutter its MSN Groups service, according to LiveSide.net. It’s not a surprise, as MSN Groups was one of the last vestiges of Microsoft’s Web services strategy pre-Windows Live.

According to the e-mails posted to LiveSide, MSN Groups will be closing on February 21, 2009. It’ll be replaced with a new service, Windows Live Groups, which debuts on November 17.

Here’s the catch: The LiveSide post indicates MSN Groups will not be migrating to Windows Live Groups; the new Windows Live service will be different enough so that the transition wouldn’t be a clean one. Instead, the LiveSide post says that existing MSN Groups will transition to community site Multiply–in other words, Multiply is effectively acquiring MSN Groups from Microsoft.

Representatives from Multiply, which said earlier this month that it has reached 10 million registered users, declined to comment. Microsoft representatives were not readily available.