Microsoft is shutting down one its main key selling point on its Windows Phone mobile operating system. Facebook's integration that is done with Facebook Connect, featured on Windows Phone back in 2010, is forced to shutdown.
The software giant first featured deep integration with Facebook contacts and the news feed. It was a unique feature since it allowed Microsoft products to connect its users with their Facebook friends. But due to an update to Facebook's Graph API, Microsoft is forced to kill the feature.
Microsoft notes that Facebook contact integration in Outlook.com, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone will no longer work.
"Contact information for the Facebook contacts shown will no longer be updated with information from Facebook," said Microsoft. Furthermore, the change also render Outlook useless for Facebook integration, and Office 365 Web App will also won't pull Facebook information anymore.
Facebook Connect was a essentially a link that connects a user's Microsoft account with their Facebook account. With the feature, Outlook.com users could see contact information from their Facebook friends directly within their emails. For Windows Phone users, Facebook Connect also automatically filled in contact information in the People app.
The deep integration of Facebook within Microsoft has made it able to work behind the scene to allow users in sharing contents from Microsoft's OneDrive to Facebook friends. By ending the partnership, more than a dozen Microsoft products and services are no longer able to integrate with Facebook directly.
In a Microsoft Office support blog post, Microsoft explained which of its products are affected by the changes to Facebook's Graph API:
- Outlook.com contacts.
- Calendar sync on Outlook.com, Windows, Windows Phone and Office 365.
- The Windows 8.1 People and Windows 8 People apps.
- The calendar apps for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.
- Windows 8 Photo Gallery and Movie Maker.
- Windows 8 Photos.
- People, OneDrive and Photos for Windows Phone 7 and 8.
- Windows Live Essentials calendar and contacts.
- OneDrive Online.
- Outlook Social Connector in Outlook 2013.
- The Office Outlook 365 Web app.
Facebook's update on its Graph API has changed the way it works. And officials at Microsoft said that this won't work anymore for both companies.
The two companies were in great partnership. From Facebook's early days, Microsoft has made investments to support the soon to be social giant network.
But as Facebook grew to be a titan on the internet, its ambitions also grew to a larger extend, closing the bridge of partnership.
Earlier examples were Facebook dumping Microsoft Skype and removing Bing from Facebook's search feature.