4 ms·

Not cluelessness. The thing is that Gates was trying to build his own, walled garden, version of the internet - MSN. These days people think MSN is a content n

Not cluelessness. The thing is that Gates was trying to build his own, walled garden, version of the internet - MSN. These days people think MSN is a content network, but it started out as a physical, dialup network, a competitor with AOL or CompuServe. Gates didn’t talk about internet technology not because he was clueless, but because he was trying to compete with it.

kragen 4y ago
msn launched in august 01995 and this article is from 01993 (albeit december 01993) maybe msn was in development but this was years before bill's famous fire alarm 'internet tidal wave' email about how the company was totally fucking up by missing out on the internet like a year and a half before https://lettersofnote.com/2011/07/22/the-internet-tidal-wave/ https://lettersofnote.com/2011/07/22/the-internet-tidal-wave... it has a paragraph about msn that kind of supports your point that it was intended to be a compuserve-like thing at the time > MSN. The merger of the On-line business and Internet business creates a major challenge for MSN. It can’t just be the place to find Microsoft information on the Internet. It has to have scale and reputation that it is the best way to take advantage of the Internet because of the value added. A lot of the content we have been attracting to MSN will be available in equal or better form on the Internet so we need to consider focusing on areas where we can provide something that will go beyond what the Internet will offer over the next few years. Our plan to promote Blackbird broadly takes away one element that would have been unique to MSN. We need to strengthen the relationship between MSN and Exchange/Cairo for mail, security and directory. We need to determine a set of services that MSN leads in – money transfer, directory, and search engines. Our high-end server offerings may require a specific relationship with MSN.
- ok123456 4y ago
  They were developing RIP at this time (unrelated to the routing protocol), as the basis of their online strategy. This would become the core of MSN.
  - kragen 4y ago
    ripscrip? i don't think that was a msft effort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol
    - ok123456 4y ago
      No different RIP.
      - kragen 4y ago
        it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the 'internet tidal wave' email i linked, is it possible you are misremembering
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  Offtopic, but putting zeros in front of years is obnoxious. I just spent several seconds trying to parse those numbers as full dates with missing digits/delimiters in various formats. If your goal is to aggravate readers, then mission accomplished.
  - kragen 4y ago
    i don't care about readers like you you haven't contributed anything of value that i can see: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dkjaudyeqooe https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dkjaudyeqooe all you do is discourage the people whose comments are worth reading
    - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
      Really? Your angry and defensive reply is worth reading? Personally I'm just glad you confirmed that you read my comment and that it upset you. Maybe think before you reply next time.
  - doctor_eval 4y ago
    Right? And anyway, 01993 is invalid octal code.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  Well, MSN launched in August 95 and the tidal wave memo was from May 95. My recollection from the time was that (a) it was clear that this was intended to be an “embrace and extend” play by MS, against the whole internet (!!) and (b) the tidal wave memo was taken to be acceptance that this previously successful strategy was too late. So MS shut down MSN and repurposed the name. Gates seemed to believe that he could beat the WWW and he set out to do so. He considered it competition, so he didn’t mention it in interviews.
  - uni_rule 4y ago
    On a similar note I always found it odd that the 1996 copy of Encarta completely omitted any mention of http on it's article for the internet. I thought it was just the material being a bit old or out of touch. I suppose that was also partly because IE4 wasn't part of the OS yet so "the web" wasn't truly ubiquitous within MS quite yet.

kragen 4y ago

msn launched in august 01995 and this article is from 01993 (albeit december 01993) maybe msn was in development but this was years before bill's famous fire alarm 'internet tidal wave' email about how the company was totally fucking up by missing out on the internet like a year and a half before https://lettersofnote.com/2011/07/22/the-internet-tidal-wave/ https://lettersofnote.com/2011/07/22/the-internet-tidal-wave... it has a paragraph about msn that kind of supports your point that it was intended to be a compuserve-like thing at the time > MSN. The merger of the On-line business and Internet business creates a major challenge for MSN. It can’t just be the place to find Microsoft information on the Internet. It has to have scale and reputation that it is the best way to take advantage of the Internet because of the value added. A lot of the content we have been attracting to MSN will be available in equal or better form on the Internet so we need to consider focusing on areas where we can provide something that will go beyond what the Internet will offer over the next few years. Our plan to promote Blackbird broadly takes away one element that would have been unique to MSN. We need to strengthen the relationship between MSN and Exchange/Cairo for mail, security and directory. We need to determine a set of services that MSN leads in – money transfer, directory, and search engines. Our high-end server offerings may require a specific relationship with MSN.

ok123456 4y ago
They were developing RIP at this time (unrelated to the routing protocol), as the basis of their online strategy. This would become the core of MSN.
- kragen 4y ago
  ripscrip? i don't think that was a msft effort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol
  - ok123456 4y ago
    No different RIP.
    - kragen 4y ago
      it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the 'internet tidal wave' email i linked, is it possible you are misremembering
dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
Offtopic, but putting zeros in front of years is obnoxious. I just spent several seconds trying to parse those numbers as full dates with missing digits/delimiters in various formats. If your goal is to aggravate readers, then mission accomplished.
- kragen 4y ago
  i don't care about readers like you you haven't contributed anything of value that i can see: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dkjaudyeqooe https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dkjaudyeqooe all you do is discourage the people whose comments are worth reading
  - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
    Really? Your angry and defensive reply is worth reading? Personally I'm just glad you confirmed that you read my comment and that it upset you. Maybe think before you reply next time.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  Right? And anyway, 01993 is invalid octal code.
doctor_eval 4y ago
Well, MSN launched in August 95 and the tidal wave memo was from May 95. My recollection from the time was that (a) it was clear that this was intended to be an “embrace and extend” play by MS, against the whole internet (!!) and (b) the tidal wave memo was taken to be acceptance that this previously successful strategy was too late. So MS shut down MSN and repurposed the name. Gates seemed to believe that he could beat the WWW and he set out to do so. He considered it competition, so he didn’t mention it in interviews.
- uni_rule 4y ago
  On a similar note I always found it odd that the 1996 copy of Encarta completely omitted any mention of http on it's article for the internet. I thought it was just the material being a bit old or out of touch. I suppose that was also partly because IE4 wasn't part of the OS yet so "the web" wasn't truly ubiquitous within MS quite yet.