After several weeks of Windows Live Messenger 8.1 testing, an interior guy told me that it will be released on Jan 25th. According to his words, the final Live Messenger 8.1 will be launched off windows live ideas page over the whole world.
In the new version we can see the following features and improvements:
??c Redesigned, smarter contact cards give you more data about and easier access to your friends
??c Your display name, status and personalization roam with you to any computer
??c Try PC-to-phone calling with two free calls to virtually any phone in the world
??c Better server performance
??c Improvements to automatic updates
??c Improved sign-in performance
Source: picturepan2
Links: Messenger blog, WLM on ideas.live.com