[Care to guess a fourth?]
I'd say because MSN's a service business, while MSFT is a product company. Three years ago they desperately needed MSN as a test-bed and showplace for the new Internet features of their products, about which there was considerable skepticism at the time. MSFT wants to sell software to net-based businesses like ISPs, so they must understand in some detail the problems of same, and jumping right in is an efficient way to learn the issues. It doesn't mean they want to run these businesses forever.
Remember SoftImage? Once they understood the needs of the high-end graphics vendor, and adjusted NT accordingly, they spun them off on their own again.
It'll be the same with banks, newspapers, travel agents, real estate agents, media companies, etc. The doomsdayers that wail "MSFT wants to take over the world" are conveniently overlooking that they rarely focus for long outside the core business, platform software. MSFT is a large corporation, but it is not a conglomerate, and obviously has no intention of becoming one. |
