Microsoft's doubts about Windows Live

Saul Hansell from The Herald Tribune has written a very interesting article about Microsoft’s doubts on Windows Live. The article is based on the view of Steve Berkowitz, manager of Microsoft’s online services.

According to Berkowitz Microsoft lost its way, because it became too preoccupied with software gadgets, like its new three-dimensional map service, and failed to make a search engine that people liked to use.

Microsoft is trying to create online services that are the equivalent of an operating system — a platform that other companies can use to develop their own Web sites using Microsoft's powerful data centers. It wants to sell advertising that will appear on these independent Web sites and in Microsoft's own software and video games, as well as on its own Web site. And it wants to use its online services to freshen up its own software.

This thinking led Microsoft to create a brand, Office Live, to incorporate the online extensions of Word, Excel and other business services. And it repackaged its e-mail, instant message, blogging and Web search services under the brand Windows Live.