I've looked on and off today for an answer to this, and I have been unable to find one, so...

I have several contacts who exclusively IM me through the "web messenger" found on the Hotmail page, rather than through the Windows Live client/program. Come March 15, after I have migrated my account to Skype, will I still be able to contact them, or will they need to download Skype? In other words, will the web messenger still be available after March 15, or is even that being discontinued? That's not, perhaps, the clearest way of putting it, but it's the best I can do.

Thanks.