Foley on Microsoft

Is Microsoft Buying into the Web 2.0 Hype?

All indications show that the software giant has finally succumbed.

• By Mary Jo Foley
• 03/01/2006

But with the advent of this month's Microsoft Mix '06 event in Las Vegas, I'm starting to wonder. While Microsoft doesn't mention "Web 2.0" explicitly in its conference materials, the company is undeniably jockeying to cash in on the hot Web 2.0 themes: AJAX development, RSS Monetization; "Conversations" as opposed to "Conferences," and so on.

That sinking feeling in my stomach got a bit stronger when I read some recent remarks by Gary Flake, the head of Microsoft's newly unveiled Live Labs. And according to Nathan Weinberg who runs the "Inside Microsoft" blog, Flake is prone to use terms like "macro-ization" of computing; "Internet singularity"; and (the dead giveaway of too much 2.0-ism) The Long Tail.

It's tough to accuse Microsoft of Web 2.0 pandering without providing a more complete definition of Web 2.0. Many have tried, but few have latched onto something tangible.

O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly attempted a concise definition that goes like this: "Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an ‘architecture of participation,' and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences."

(And yes, for those of you counting -- that was one sentence. So much for brevity.)

All I can say is, I know Web 2.0 shucksterism when I see it. It's almost always promoted by vendors sporting inane names and venture capitalists and journalists who happily rode the last Internet Bubble wave. It's fraught with companies with half-baked ideas and flimsy business plans.

Now that you know how I really feel, you can see why I am loath to watch Microsoft become a big Web 2.0 backer.

I don't think Microsoft can or should ignore the Web. Microsoft made a major mistake in the early 1990s when Jim Allchin trumped Brad Silverberg, who had urged Microsoft to open Windows to the Web. With the announcement of the Microsoft Live initiative last year, the company is finally recovering from Allchin's effort to preserve the Windows franchise against all threats.

But being Web savvy doesn't mean jumping on every Internet scheme that floats down the pike. There has to be discernment between fly-by-night fads and real technology changes that affect the future of computing. Microsoft needed to integrate its evolving services platform with its shrink-wrapped software, as it plans to do via the Live strategy spearheaded by Chief Technology Officer Ray Ozzie. But it doesn't need to swallow any Web 2.0 snake oil in the process.

What say you, readers? Is Microsoft in danger of succumbing to the siren call of Web 2.0 and its backers? Or do you think Microsoft could benefit from a little more Web 2.0 thinking? Write to me at [email protected] and let me know what you think.