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So some of the products mentioned below still exist today in some form, usually with an updated, Windows Live-based name. Arguably, that's always been the case.Īnyway, these articles date from the 2002 to 2005 period before the advent of Windows Live, while Microsoft was transitioning from its dial-up past and trying to establish a popular consumer brand on the Internet. Because of this, MSN is still somewhat "popular"-that is, millions of people visit the site, though one wonders whether they even know they have a choice-but is a far cry from its original vision. In this way, this latter MSN phase is indeed analogous to Windows Live today, and when Microsoft introduced its Windows Live brand, it renamed most MSN properties and turned MSN (via MSN.com) into a standard Internet portal, and the default home page in Internet Explorer. Quickly surmising that content creation was expensive and highly non-lucrative, Microsoft then moved to make MSN into its Internet services brand, and it began branding all of its Internet-leaning products, aside from, notably, Internet Explorer, as MSN.
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Then there was the Microsoft-as-Internet-content-provider phase, where MSN turned briefly into a series of web destinations, like web-based TV shows, and MSN sites like "Mungo Park" ruled the day. There was the dial-up Internet access phase, where MSN was integrated into Windows (98) in an entirely different fashion, and you could access its many content points via a nice-looking circular red button in the system tray and a customized black and red version of Internet Explorer. It was actually pretty innovative.īut it was also unsuccessful, so MSN went through a variety of major changes, each as unsuccessful as the last. For example, instead of creating an application front-end for the service, as CompuServe and AOL did at the time, Microsoft directly integrated MSN into Windows 95, and you navigate through the service's areas as you did through the file system, using specially customized Explorer windows. But like other Microsoft products that people position in the defeat column, it arrived with some unique functionality that even today seems forward leaning. The original version of the service was startlingly unsuccessful, a first clue that not everything Microsoft touched turned to gold. So it complained to the US government and won a concession from Microsoft where AOL's service was easily accessible in Windows 95 as well.īut AOL needn't have feared MSN. It's hard to remember those days, but MSN was in fact the kickoff point for the United States government's historic antitrust battle against Microsoft: AOL, at the time the dominant online service, feared that by bundling its online service in Windows, Microsoft could usurp its market position. Before there was Windows Live, Microsoft's Internet services brand was MSN, which was originally shorthand for "The Microsoft Network" and was marketed as a CompuServe-like dial-up Internet access service that was bundled in Windows 95.