Microsoft and WordPress announced today that the Windows Live Spaces blogging service will be phased out. Users of Live Spaces will have the ability to transfer their blogs via a new migration utility beginning today.

In a post on Inside Windows Live, Dharmesh Mehta, said: “Over the last few weeks, we’ve spent a good bit of time talking about our approach to partnering with the web, and as part of that, how we’re deeply integrating with the leading consumer services that you find most valuable.

As we looked at customers’ blogging needs and what different companies were providing, we were particularly interested in what WordPress is doing….

So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com.”

Automattic’s Paul Kim added on the Just Another WordPress Weblog: “Over a six month period, beginning today, Windows Live Spaces users will have the option to move their blogs to WordPress. To make this possible, we’ve created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPres. New Windows Live users will also be offered a WordPress blog when they choose to create a new blog.”

We’re very happy that Microsoft chose WordPress as their preferred new blogging service for Windows Live users. It’s a sign of how strong WordPress has become, and credit for that goes to every one of you who’s been creating here....

This could easily double the current size of Wordpress ...only time will tell whether they stumble.