[Discuss] Thunderbird has an IM client?

[Tom Metro]

When an application subsumes the functionality of an entirely separate
application, and you don't even notice, you might be suffering from
feature bloat.

Yesterday while looking for some settings in Thunderbird (v.17) I ran
across the "Chat status" item on the Tools menu. It looked like it took
me to a setup dialog for a multi-protocol IM client. Did I install an
extension for this that I don't remember?

Nope, it became a core feature in v.15:

https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/instant-messaging-and-chat

  As of Thunderbird 15, Thunderbird supports instant messaging and chat
  using IRC, Facebook, XMPP, Twitter, and Google Talk.

Why? Only benefit I see to having this built-in to Thunderbird was:

  Like any other type of Thunderbird account (e.g. email and RSS), Chat
  is integrated with search.
  Here's an example of email, Twitter, Facebook and Chat conversations
  being found by Thunderbird's global search...

OK, so you can log all your communication in one place, and search
through it using a single interface. OK... An extension to search
through Pidgin's logs could have accomplished the same thing.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/