{"id":98,"date":"2005-09-15T23:29:42","date_gmt":"2005-09-16T05:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/wp\/?p=98"},"modified":"2005-09-15T23:29:42","modified_gmt":"2005-09-16T05:29:42","slug":"unloading_msn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=98","title":{"rendered":"Unloading MSN"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are growing indications that Microsoft is trying to spin off its MSN web portal, probably by merging it with AOL to create a standalone business that would be jointly owned by Microsoft and Time Warner. If it pans out, it would be a good move. As Saul Hansell of the New York Times reports<\/a>, Microsoft “no longer sees [its portal business] as strategically important.” Apparently, it also recently offered to sell MSN to Yahoo but was turned down.<\/p>\n

Microsoft needs to revamp its web strategy in order to focus on its core business, software. Rather than operating a content portal like MSN, it should think about creating an applications portal, a one-stop shop for tapping into a set of hosted, browser-based software services – not just search and email and instant messaging, but software-as-a-service versions of all its Office applications as well as a set of enterprise applications like CRM. It has to bite the bullet and get serious about managing the transition away from traditional packaged applications – or it will fritter away its enormous advantages. An interim strategy whereby it provides a seamless combination of hosted and local versions of key applications would be tough for competitors to match.<\/p>\n

Keeping an ownership stake in the content portal might not be so bad. It would allow Microsoft to use AOL\/MSN as a promotion\/distribution channel, aimed at consumers, for its hosted applications but at the same time escape the distractions of actually running the thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are growing indications that Microsoft is trying to spin off its MSN web portal, probably by merging it with AOL to create a standalone business that would be jointly owned by Microsoft and Time Warner. If it pans out, it would be a good move. As Saul Hansell of the New York Times reports, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}