WinInsider

Windows and Office Live offerings seem so unnecessary. Web type application will always be inferior to rich client applications; there is no reason to kill MSN, instead concentrate on making Windows OS the best platform to write great software.

Anyone still remember when Netscape was Microsoft's big boogeyman about ten years ago? When Microsoft completely rearchitected Internet Explorer 4.0 to meet some crazy Netscape desktop replacement solution that never even appeared? The results of that work continue to haunt Microsoft's users today: Windows was melded with IE, the IE shell replaced Explorer, and HTML was suddenly everywhere in the OS; all of these moves provided hackers with countless new ways to surreptitiously enter our PCs and compromise them to their own evil ends. And these attacks continue today: Every month, it seems, a new patch is released for a critical IE security vulnerability. Well, good news, Windows users. Microsoft is at it again. And this time, the supposed competitor is Google, a company that dabbles in Windows software but is really best known for Web-based services. As with Netscape, Microsoft wants to stop Google at all costs, and it's already taken a page from its original Netscape competition playbook by starting to copy every single feature Google offers. And now, it's killing MSN to meld all those services into Windows. You can sort of see where this is headed. Unless Microsoft realizes the insanity of what it's doing, the software giant is heading toward a downward spiral that can only result in products and services no one is asking for, all seamless integrated with its dominant PC-based products. Please, Microsoft. Take a step back and think about what you're doing here. Your history speaks for itself. It's not a pretty story for you or your customers.