Is Messenger for Mac past it?

What does a reviewer do when he sees his readers disagree with him? He goes out and asks them their opinion. Now I’ve recently noticed that only 59% of Softonic users have liked my review of Messenger for Mac, which is week in week out the most popular Mac download on Softonic. I gave the application only three stars, explaining that the IM client has neither VoIP or video chat, crashes often, has a much older, Panther-like interface, and even a text messaging tool that doesn’t work properly. Even worse, Messenger for Mac is still stuck on 6.0.3 while PC users can enjoy the thrills and spills of version 9, which works much better, has a cool customizable interface and lets you make calls.

I believe that Mac users should be able to have as good a product as their PC counterparts and if not, that they should simply go for something better. There are many excellent alternative IM clients on Mac, many of which support MSN and offer extra features. Anyways, I’d be really curious to know if users still enjoy Messenger for Mac and on what points they disagree with me.

Even more interesting is people’s opinions on the upcoming version of Messenger for Mac. Beta 7 is said to include video support, among a number of significant improvements, and a fresh new interface. For this reason, I’m not completely throwing in the towel yet and remain optimistic that it can catch up to those Adium, Skype and other Yahoo! Messengers. In the present though, I still think that Messenger for Mac just doesn’t cut it. What do you think?