Companies are deathly afraid of introducing new brands and cling to the misguided idea of expanding their existing brand into unrelated territories. Usually this results in the brand losing all meaning.

So here we have Microsoft trying to leverage an existing brand (Skype) into new territory (social media). The technical aspect or what users actually want is a afterthought.

Microsoft could release their own alternative to current social media apps but they won't just start small and build a new brand.