Microsoft needs to focus and to spend its resources on too many projects at the expense of its core business.
There are a lot of things which can still be done in the operating systems realm. There are a lot of things they could achieve in terms of openess and interoperability.
Of course, once you chose that path you have to ensure that your products are clearly better than competitors.
Microsoft’s move to transition Windows Live Spaces customers to Wordpress.com is another sign that the company doesn’t have to be all things to all people.
In a blog post, Microsoft said Windows Live Space users will have six months to migrate to Wordpress.com. As Mary Jo Foley noted, rumors have swirled around the end of Windows Live as a blogging platform.
Dharmesh Mehta, director of Windows Live Product Management, said:
As we looked at customers’ blogging needs and what different companies were providing, we were particularly interested in what WordPress.com is doing. They have a host of impressive capabilities – from a scalable platform and leading spam protection, to great personalization and customization. WordPress powers over 8.5% of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people every month. Not only that, Automattic is a company filled with great people focused on improving blogging experiences. 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.
Go figure. Microsoft is working to kill projects that don’t necessarily add up.
To wit:
- Microsoft dumped its Money software when it realized that it couldn’t compete with Intuit.
- Small business accounting tools were nuked.
- And Response Point small business phone systems.
Toss in the Kin—which may not have been Microsoft’s decision—and there’s a willingness to pare back on projects at Redmond.
Google has also pulled the plug on some experiments that haven’t worked out. Overall, it’s a good trend. Cut your losses early.
Now you can argue that Microsoft shouldn’t be sweating things like Zune and even search to some degree. But Microsoft is showing that it doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. It’s a positive development overall.
