They saw it as another technology platform, as with Windows. What they also needed was an operational API platform, with billing, meta-directory/federated ID, provisioning, profile, etc. Call it “MSN.NET”. It would have learned from the Passport fisaco, and would be very inclusive of third party services. If necessary, it would just be a bootstrap to discover whoever was hosting your digital identities, or doing your billing.

Windows XP should have been the distribution mechanism to ensure ubiquity of adoption.

There are scattered elements of this around, but eBay-Skype is now much closer to the prize than anyone else outside the mobile carriers. Billing is the crux for obvious reasons. But the mobile carriers are getting lost in IMS land, when they should be opening up their network and business platforms with Parlay-like technology and gathering a developer community.

With all the sad media tales of Microsoft’s stagnation around its 30th birthday celebrations, it would be nice to have more than one good news story of highly customer-valued innovation from Redmond.

Are an alpha-blended user interface, faster boot-up and slicker printer handling really the most urgent and pressing problem of Windows users? Or the tying together of their data islands and making their personal communications richer and more productive?

It smacks of a missed opportunity resulting from “train track” linear thinking: because technology platforms made us rich last time, more technology platforms are needed to keep making us richer. They aren’t capable of directional change at the structural level. This isn’t a new problem, and many forests have been felled to print the Harvard Business Reviews and business books to document the phenomenon across many industries.

Their recent re-org bundles the “operational” MSN back in with “static” Windows and Office. It’s too early to say whether the result will be an improvement in their strategic direction, but I can’t say I’m too hopeful.

via Telepocalpyse.