Facebook (News - Alert) is going through some interesting changes when it comes to different applications it’s been leaning on in one fashion or another for years. Most recently, the social networking site started warning Facebook Messenger for Windows users that it was going to be shutting down that particular application on March 3. The one week notice came without much in the way of explanation.

“We’re sorry, but we can no longer support Facebook Messenger for Windows, and it will stop working on March 3, 2014,” the message states at the top of the application. “We really appreciate you using Messenger to reach your friends, and we want to make sure you know that you can keep chatting and view all your messages on http://www.facebook.com.” There is also a “learn more” link, but it leads to a generic messages about the different ways you can use Facebook Messenger. The only other mention of the application that is specific to Windows is how to uninstall it.

What makes this particular message really strange, is that it popped up less than three days after Microsoft announced Facebook Messenger was coming to the Windows Phone (News - Alert) in a few weeks. This doesn’t appear to be a falling out between Microsoft and Facebook. The company has also announced it will be ending the messenger application that works on Mozilla (News - Alert) Firefox on the same day.

That seems to indicate that the shutdown has more to do with the social media site cutting the number of platforms it is offering the application on. Perhaps this is all in preparation for updating and improvement of the “Facebook Home” solution. Maybe it’s simply a matter of doing like Google (News - Alert) does and cutting some of its less popular offerings for no other reason than it doesn’t want to have to worry about them anymore.

At least for now, Facebook isn’t talking about the reasons behind Messenger for Windows and Firefox shutting down but it’s a safe bet we’ll know the cause sooner rather than later.