The VK company announced that it will be shutting down the ICQ messenger service in a month, with operations set to cease on June 26. As part of their strategy to concentrate on the development of their own messaging services, the company will now focus on the development of VK Messenger for users and corporate services, as well as VK WorkSpace for business.
The ICQ messenger was originally created by the Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996. Mail.ru Group (later VK) acquired ICQ in 2010, and Mirabilis itself was acquired by AOL in 1998 for $407 million.
Employees from the ICQ team will be joining the teams working on these new products. Users are encouraged to transition to VK Messenger for their communication needs.
