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Microsoft Plans Flickr Competitor 156

Posted by Zonk from the piktrs-maybe-or-photoz dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Judging by newly posted job calls, Microsoft is now working on a Flickr-like online photo service. ZDNet reports: '"This feature team is building a next-generation photo and video sharing service that will compete with Flickr, SmugMug and other photo web solutions today. This is a 'v1' opportunity," the ad said. And video will be a part of the effort, too: "This role will work across the new Windows Live division with teams like Spaces, SkyDrive, Messenger and Hotmail to construct a winning strategy for Microsoft in photo and video sharing." Evidently, Microsoft sees the effort as an online extension of its current desktop technology.' Gundeep Hora, at CoolTechZone, feels that such a service is unlikely to succeed, and lays out the numerous challenges the company will face upon entering the market."
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Microsoft Plans Flickr Competitor More

Microsoft Plans Flickr Competitor

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  • Say what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:23PM (#21352247) Homepage Journal

    'Evidently, Microsoft sees the effort as an online extension of its current desktop technology.'

    Is this this same strategy which has brought us massive code bloat at the cost of random number security? [slashdot.org]

    One of these days, someone is going to come up with an April Fools 'Virtual Wombat Herding' and Microsoft will "innovate" their own incarnation as it will be seen as a vital extension of its current desktop technology and won't they look the silly buggers.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by caffeinemessiah ( 918089 )
      Don't write off MS on this one just yet. There are some very talented people at MS Research who have been working on some really cool algorithms for photo manipulation: Phototours [microsoft.com], Groupshot [microsoft.com], Photosynth [live.com]. If they manage to string it all together in a decent UI, it might be MS's best and most successful effort at something cool and useful.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        That's what I was thinking as well. The photosynth demo I believe was using Flickr photos to create the 3d images. However, remember also that MS has a stake in Facebook now too.

        It's quite easy to see a potential integration between Facebook (through some app), MSN Messenger, Photosynth, and their Flickr competitor that could produce some interesting results.

        • Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ggvaidya ( 747058 )
          It's a really nice idea: a lot of my friends shy away from Flickr because of its expansive, community-based idea of image storage and sharing - they want a private place to host family and personal photos. A lot of them already use Facebook and Picassa Web Albums extensively for exactly this reason. And remember: Yahoo! Photos shut down earlier this (last?) year. All those displaced people will be needing somewhere to go to for private photo hosting. A Yahoo! Photos-clone with support to public sharing of i
          • I have a pro account on Flickr, which is nice. I use Flickr uploader and default them all to private (me only), then I sort through and adjust permissions. Some I make public, some I make family only, some friends only, and some are open to both friends & family.

            The catch is that your friends & family have to register with yahoo.
            • The catch is that your friends & family have to register with yahoo.

              That's kind of a massive, deal-breaking catch. IMO, it renders the feature absolutely useless. It's arrogant to demand that people register and get a stupid Yahoo account just to look at photos (would I do that? hell no; I'm not going to ask anyone else to).

              A better system would work more like Google's Picasa system, which lets you make an "unlisted" album with a special URL, and email that URL out to anyone you want. As long as someone has the URL, they can view the album.

              Such features have been a hot request item on Flickr for more than two years now, but the developers seem stubborn about not implementing them. I don't know if it's some deal they have with Yahoo, to try and get more people signed up with Yahoo accounts, or something else entirely, but they're shooting themselves in the foot, big time.

              • Re:You can select friends and or family only... (Score:4, Insightful)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @04:48PM (#21355209)
                Um, what? You can do exactly that on Flickr - it's called a Guest Pass:

                http://www.flickr.com/help/guestpass/ [flickr.com]

                So much for your little conspiracy theory that Flickr intentionally isn't implementing a wanted feature in order for Yahoo to gain more accounts.

                • Um, what? You can do exactly that on Flickr - it's called a Guest Pass:

                  http://www.flickr.com/help/guestpass/ [flickr.com]

                  So much for your little conspiracy theory that Flickr intentionally isn't implementing a wanted feature in order for Yahoo to gain more accounts.
                  That's new. Well, I guess it's better late than never.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) *

                That's ridiculous. My flickr account [flickr.com] also required me to change over to a yahoo ID a while back; took a few minutes, and it was no trouble at all. Also, it is trivial to make private albums, photos, etc. I've used that capability from both sides, as an invited guest and as a provider of restricted material. It works fine and is no problem to use or manage. These accusations are just nonsensical FUD, motive unknown.

                I have a lot of fun with my flickr account; I share pics with my family, with random stran

            • I also have a flickr account, but I don't really use it anymore. The procedure for resetting my password on my yahoo id was so extreme that I very nearly gave up - took me nearly an hour of constantly going through the same steps, being rejected by insanely hard captchas, form filling that kept prompting me for more information, and other annoyances.

              I have designed security systems dealing with classified government records, and I know it really doesn't need to be as difficult as that. I appreciate it whe

            • Re:You can select friends and or family only... (Score:5, Informative)

              by Wanderer2 ( 690578 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @03:44PM (#21354369) Homepage

              The catch is that your friends & family have to register with yahoo.

              Not completely true. You can give friends and family special "guest pass" urls that allow them to look at non-public photos of your choice without needing to register with flickr/Yahoo.

              Linky [flickr.com]

              Of course, they can't comment etc. unless they register. They can only view.

            • Just create a "guest pass," and they won't need to sign up: http://www.flickr.com/help/guestpass/ [flickr.com]
      • You forgot Windows Media Photo [microsoft.com], which is more like how Microsoft likes to operate.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Can you, by chance, name any other successful, cool and useful, endeavours that Microsoft has produced over the years? They seem to be escaping me at the moment.

        No. XBOX Live does not count.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *

          Can you, by chance, name any other successful, cool and useful, endeavours that Microsoft has produced over the years? They seem to be escaping me at the moment

          I'm hard pressed to, though I'm certain they have some somewhere. Typically Microsoft, as a corporate strategy, wait for something successful to emerge, then copy it. A company needs to grow, but Microsoft seem to see themselves as the end-all be-all, grow into markets which have only the most tenuous connection to their core products.

        • Can you, by chance, name any other successful, cool and useful, endeavours that Microsoft has produced over the years?

          Their hardware (keyboards, mice, Sidewinder gamepad) is usually pretty good. I really liked Freelancer, too. Personally, I like C# and .Net, though you can always debate exactly how much credit Microsoft should get for cloning Java and making a few improvements on it. I thought Windows Media Player (at least around versions 9 and 10) was decent enough, or at least not so bad that I went out and searched for other programs for the small amount of music I listened to on my computer.

        • How about Visual Studio 2005, the very best IDE for C++ development that I have ever used(after vim)? Anyway, GP was not talking about software methinks, Microsoft Research is a whole 'nother thing, and yes their people are very good. They produce quality academic papers all the time, and are mostly PhDs/experts in various areas of CS. I've turned down soft.eng jobs for MS, but a research position in those labs would be a privilege.

        • No. XBOX Live does not count.
          Why not? Because it proves you wrong?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by miffo.swe ( 547642 )
        "There are some very talented people at MS Research who have been working on some really cool algorithms for photo manipulation: Phototours, Groupshot, Photosynth." This is offset by the number of not so talanted people in PR and SALES that adds useless features while making the ones good be buried deep down in a swamp of security issues because some PHB decided it should be as much tied into the desktop as possible. All while the talented people at MS Research scream in horror. MS Research is just props
        • touche, and hence my hope that they SOMEHOW manage to bypass the BS -- there can never be *enough* well-translated research-based products in the market, even if its hoping for too much.

      • Re:Say what? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Guido von Guido ( 548827 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:52PM (#21352725)
        Where did all the talented people at Xerox PARC get Xerox? The issue here isn't that Microsoft doesn't have talented people (it does), or that Microsoft doesn't have some innovative research products going (they do). The issue is: can they get this to market successfully? Their track record with projects outside their core area of expertise is not so great.

        We'll see, though.
        • Oh really?

          MSN.com/Live does well - they pull around 20% of search results of site I manage. Their ISP venture is still alive and kicking too.

          Your right though, it isn't like the Xbox has been a huge success... oh wait...

          • Your right though, it isn't like the Xbox has been a huge success..
            Success? Measured how? Clearly not in terms of profit [google.com]. One might wonder how much talent it takes to create a product which only sells due to billions of dollars of losses that the seller is prepared to accept.

            And that should be "You're", not "Your".
            • Measured by investment vs return for their stockholders. Posting a profit [teamxbox.com] for the first time is a big step and was forecasted to do exactly this 2 years ago. It is a business model that spans many years and was launched knowing full well they would see losses for years. Microsoft entered the console gaming market and is doing very well by the looks of things. The XBox is a household brand and the Halo series has a stranglehold on the top title spot. Do you think the stockholders see the Xbox as a failure? N
          • only because they have massive profit to sink into the ventures. This sounds like another Microsoft "me too" announcement... call us when it's ready, working and good!

      • I will tell you why you can write MS off (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @02:01PM (#21352855) Journal

        I followed the links you supplied and didn't have to look far at all before I ran into pages that were IE/Windows only. You want to take a guess at how many Flickr customers use an Apple?

        Yes MS has a huge share of the desktop, in business it is near absolute, but that means all those millions of machines Apple keeps churning out HAVE TO END UP SOMEWHERE. In fact, I have strong personal evidence that Apples last longer, so that means there are a shitload of people out there on macs. This doesn't even count freaks like me on linux.

        Does that matter? Yes, a sharing site, a social site, should just work. In Firefox, in Safari, in opera, on OSX on OS9 on Linux on BSD and yes even windows ALL all the way back to 98.

        MS can't do this. Not because of a lack of skill, it just wouldn't occur to them. It simply ain't the way MS operates. They always will introduce some element that excludes large numbers of their own customers, let alone those on other OS'es or who don't use IE.

        And that matters, because these sites are about sharing, not about worrying wether your viewer has the right browser/OS or indeed software installed.

        Why do you think so many sites now use flash for their video player? Because it is the most reliable way of doing that, why do you think a lot of sites EVEN so still add a hard download link? Because the captures the last percentage of users.

        The techies at MS may be capable, but somewhere in the Redmond beast there is someone with veto powers who ALWAYS injects something that kills it. Look at all their attemps with a universal login, they renamed it, redesigned it and it is still a dismall failure, because at no point did MS put the enduser first and not their own corporate interests.

        The moment MS becomes capable (not in tech but in business decisions) to support other OS'es then its own, then MS will be succesfull on the web. Perhaps it is changing, silverlight might be a change and I did see a link to a .mov on photosynth. But the apps themselves are windows XP SP2 and Vista only (in fact one says XP only).

        Check flickr, you won't be able to move for the mac lovers.

      • ... their problem is translating brilliant R&D (they've got the money to hire really bright people) into good products. Until, as an organization, they stop trying to make each of their individual products further the adoption of all of their other products they will continue to mangle and maim the fruits handed to them by their brilliant R&D.

        xbox is a good example of what MS can do when

        a) they're forced to compete
        b) they focus on the product instead of the whole product family

        l4h

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dan Ost ( 415913 )
          Is Microsoft actually making money on the XBox yet? Last I heard, they were still down several billion dollars.

          We have yet to learn if Microsoft can turn a profit without being able to charge monopoly rent.
      • There are many awesomely talented people at Microsoft _and_ MS research, but their management has over 30 years of experience in quashing any productivity, good ideas and real innovation from what they produce.

        I worked at AOL for 15 months ending in 2006. There were some awesomely talented people at AOL too, and although most have left now, many still remain. You wouldn't know it because management was even more effective at completely destroying any good ideas, cancelling any project that was making prog

    • Where did all the talented people at Xerox PARC get Xerox? The issue here isn't that Microsoft doesn't have talented people (it does), or that Microsoft doesn't have some innovative research products going (they do). The issue is: can they get this to market successfully? Their track record with projects outside their core area of expertise is not so great. We'll see, though.

      That's a good analogy, and I think it all has to do with corporate culture. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that groups within

    • One of these days, someone is going to come up with an April Fools 'Virtual Wombat Herding' . . .


      Hey! I resent that remark! Putting wombat and Microsoft in the same sentence is an insult to all the decent, fuzzy wombats of the world.

  • They just want to feed the machine [ted.com]!

    -Grey [silverclipboard.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jag7720 ( 685739 )
      They invented nothing... he even says... "technology gained by an acquisition" MS is nothing but a buyer...

  • come on MS.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AmaDaden ( 794446 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:28PM (#21352343)
    MS has yet to make one web app that gained any real steam. Do they really think they stand a chance of uprooting flicker? I thought they learned their lesson and deiced to just buy people who know what they are doing.
    • Except for, oh I don't know, Internet Explorer?
      • Technically, yes you can call IE a web app(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application [wikipedia.org]). However the common definition of web apps is a web page that has some kind of huge back end that can do something impressive, Like hotmail and flicker. IE is far more considered a web browser then a web app. Even if it was a web app it only got to where it was because it came with Windows. It did not have to earn being used. It only had to earn not being replaced. And now it's losing that battle too.
    • > photo web solutions

      Can we just call it a website please? I don't need my photos solved. I want them stored.

      This kind of hot air speak works really well for people who don't know what they're doing, ie managers with no tech background making tech decisions, but it doesn't hold water for the real folk. Joe off the street won't think MS' site is more kick ass than Flickr because it's a "photo solution" instead of a website (if that's what Flickr calls its site.) Also, I'm a software engineer, I work with
  • Great, a Flickr/YouTube wannabe that only works on Windows and XBoxes. So who actually wants this?
    • It actually goes the other way around: if the user's pictures are trapped on a photo-sharing site that only works on Windows, then the user is forever locked to buying future copies of Windows. Any data you have on MS-specific apps is continuously held hostage to ensure you keep paying the Microsoft tax.

  • Not flaming, just laughing... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:30PM (#21352377) Journal
    Gundeep Hora, at CootTechZone...

    I was disappointed to find that that's a typo -- it sounded like a great site: "Get off my Second Life lawn, you lousy kids!"

  • Oh yeah? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Wellington Grey ( 942717 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:31PM (#21352385) Homepage Journal
    "We want to make it easy and fun to enjoy your photos and videos, whether that is on the PC in your office, the Media Center in your living room, the XBox in your entertainment center, or on your mobile device when you are out and about."

    Oh yeah? What about my iPod, Bill?

    -Grey [luminiferous-aether.net]

  • Buzzword alert (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RandoX ( 828285 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:32PM (#21352395)
    I'm always hesitant when I see phrases like "construct a winning strategy"... Cut the BS, what's going to make it better for me that what's out there already?

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They're trying to synergise their Web 2.0 leveragability.
    • "construct a winning strategy" -- "we don't have a strategy, but if we can contruct a winning strategy, the strategy will be better than Flickr's and we will win!"

      or,

      "use our desktop monopoly to steer people away from Flickr and make sure Flikr performs poorly and looks bad in IE7 if they somehow do manage to get through."

      Xix.

  • Slightly off topic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by saibot834 ( 1061528 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:32PM (#21352399)
    But Flickr just got its two billionth picture [flickr.com].

  • Anyone Notice something ....? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:32PM (#21352401) Journal
    Has anyone noticed that MS has completely stop any semblance of innovation or improvement upon products, and is now instead chasing every single idea in Tech simultaneously?

    Google, Yahoo, Linux, Apple .... the list is getting longer everyday. At some point, the death by a thousand cuts will occur. No single cut will have killed, only the combination of all of them.

    • Sssssh! I'm just buying my popcorn and watching the show. This is as much fun as watching the SIV and mortgage meltdowns.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by jc42 ( 318812 )
      Has anyone noticed that MS has completely stop any semblance of innovation or improvement upon products, and is now instead chasing every single idea in Tech simultaneously?

      So when has their approach been different from that?

      From the very first release of the "IBM PC" running DOS, the IBM/Microsoft strategy has been to watch what the flock of independent developers and small companies develops, watch the reaction of "the Market", and when someone develops something that sells, either buy them out or (if the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by k2enemy ( 555744 )

        In some circles, this is known as "doing a Netscape" on the competition, since it's the way that Microsoft drove Netscape out of business. It works for Microsoft. It probably won't work for you or me, because we don't control the market-leader OS.

        Ya just gotta understand how our Capitalist system actually works (as opposed by how economic theology says it should work).

        I'm not sure what you mean by "economic theology", but the same economic theory that promotes capitalism as an efficient system (under certai

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jc42 ( 318812 )
          ... but your assertion that economic theory precludes this behavior is incorrect.

          Note that I didn't say "economic theory", but rather "economic theology". I'm familiar with, for example, Adam Smith's warnings of the perversities that unbridled capitalism can produce, and also his warnings about the possible effects of government-sponsored monopolies (e.g., the Hudson Bay company's history in what's now mostly Canada).

          But in fora like this, we regularly see discussions derailed by the crowd that believes fe

    • Has anyone noticed that MS has completely stop any semblance of innovation or improvement upon products, and is now instead chasing every single idea in Tech simultaneously?

      I don't think Microsoft ever really innovated all that much. It's just that in this new world of broadband internet, web feeds, and popularity sites, all of the ideas that Microsoft plagiarize are widely-known by the time they actually implement them.

      The new thing is Microsoft's new strategy of frantically diversifying into every single niche they can find at once. Microsoft clearly aren't stupid. They know their current money-makers (primarily Windows and Office) are screwed in the long-run, so they're

  • Who gives a crap (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jag7720 ( 685739 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:33PM (#21352425) Homepage
    Who gives a crap....

  • News at eleven (Score:3, Funny)

    by [rvr] ( 93881 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:34PM (#21352447) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft Plans *.* Competitor

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )
      s/\*\.\*/\*/

      If it was *.* they would just be replacing there own stuff, I think they want more

  • Who wants it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .molbdeh.leinad.> on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:38PM (#21352517) Homepage Journal
    Why the need to tie everything down onto the desktop? Integrating stuff can be nice if it serves a purpouse. When integrating things just because it often gives a worse product than it could be. Why not spend the development effort on bringing out the best possible product regardless of how its presented? Right now it really feels like the end product is way down on the list, long after "do it in .net or get fired", "make it suck" and "for gods sake tie it down onto the desktop".

  • Predictions (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Idaho ( 12907 )
    - The first release will only work on IE 7/Windows.
    - It will require/use windows media player rather than flash. Or, even better, use that Silver-somethingorother-thingamajig that nobody has installed or uses.
    - There will be 30 seconds of banners/ads before each movie starts
    - It will not allow embedding of movies on other sites
    - The interface will overuse Ajaxy web 2.0 (TM) technology, slowing down the interface/browser
    - DRM will somehow have to be involved, such that even if you could save the stream your

    • Bonus points if necessary DRM/windows media player updates are forced to install through the famous windows "critical" update system.

      no, it will probably be touted as a new feature in windows7.

      DRM will somehow have to be involved, such that even if you could save the stream your browser is playing, the content would be useless.

      that's almost a given looking at Vista's support of DRM and the fact that the MPAA/RIAA seem to have some sort of deal with MS on the issue. In a few years if things keep up as they

    • I'm no MS fan, but I predict you'll be wrong on all counts.

  • new MicroSoft stock symbol: COPY (Score:4, Funny)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:57PM (#21352793)
    speaks for self

  • Why does every new product labeled 'competitor'? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by I'm Don Giovanni ( 598558 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @02:03PM (#21352879)
    I've noticed that every time a new product/service is announced, the media's prime focus is that it's a "competitor" of some earlier product? It's like, who cares about what it actually does, let's just talk about the "competition', "horse race", etc.

    Maybe a company releases a product/service just to make money, not to compete or kill something else. Hell, I have multilple gmail, yahoo, and hotmail email accounts; I don't think of them as competitors (even though they are), they are just services to me. Sometime I buy Coke, sometimes Pepsi. I don't give a damn about the competition between the two.

    So here we have the story, "Microsoft Plans Flickr Competitor (or 'Clone' as TFA says)" rather than "Microsoft Plans Online Photo Service" as the headline. Because all we care about is the competition aspect. *yawn*
    • Can you say, Microsoft apologist?

    • If this was a stupid Microsoftloving site, it would have been "Microsoft's new photosharing service brings revolution to the Web".

      Unfortunately, this comment is too real to be eligible for "Funny".

    • I agree that the media fixation with "a X competitor" or "a X killer" is annoying and silly. However, it's important to realize where this "must compete" attitude comes from: a (sometimes blinding) desire to make money. With respect to the stock market, it is often assumed that economic activity always falls into a pre-defined sector, and that since there are finite resources (in terms of customer spending power) within that sector, a company can only make money at the expense of another. Hence, for a new s

  • As with any story involving Lord Sauron of Redmond, I have only one thing to say:

    Google is a better company than Microsoft.

    /me ducks to avoid being hit by chair.

  • such a service is unlikely to succeed, and lays out the numerous challenges the company will face upon entering the market.
    That, presumably, it will only be running on M$ servers using M$ tools.

  • v1 opportunity? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dml6 ( 96785 )
    Do they mean 'v1' as in "version 1" or as in V1 [wikipedia.org]. Because you know, other empires had interests in 'v1' opportunities as well.
    Seriously though, what will they include in this product that will make people want to switch away from the existing photo sharing sites? As a photographer I'm all for cool new features. But those features are worthless if they don't help me get things done better/quicker and the menu options for them keep moving around with each new release. What is the compelling reason to use
  • I'm still trying to figure out, will it include video?
  • This wouldn't just be competing against Flickr, but also Zooomr, SmugMug, Photobucket, Picassaweb, WebShots, etc. This space seems very crowded already. How many pictures do people want on public display anyway?

  • Me Too !!! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jo42 ( 227475 )
    I'm going to do an online photo and video hosting service as well. It will work with Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. You will be able to upload your content and share it with friends and family - actually anyone in the world if you want. Imagine that.

    I'm going to use something called "Linux" running "Apache" using "HTTP" and "FTP" protocols to do this on something called "co-located servers".

    Oh. Wait. I've been doing this since the mid-'90s. Drats. Foiled again...
  • You know, if Microsoft was a proactive company instead of a reactive one, they might actually be able to legitimately claim that they are innovators. I'd say 95% of the crap they produce is the result of a response to products already available on the market. If you're going to copy somebody else's product, then it needs to be an improved version of it....this is one big reason why I have no doubt in my mind that Linux will eventually overtake Microsoft in the OS market.

    • Re:proactive vs reactive (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zrq ( 794138 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @03:05PM (#21353799) Journal

      On the other hand ... Someone has already mentioned PhotoTours [microsoft.com] and GroupShot [microsoft.com] in an earlier post, and they really are quite cool. Do these qualify as proactive ?

      My first thought was "Wow, can't wait until someone does an open source version of these that runs on Linux". But if someone did release an open source version of these, would that be reactive ?

      I think we are all playing catch up with each other.

      • Yes, those ARE cool projects. But maybe it's time to stop apologising for Microsoft's failures by pointing at their research. Yes, they can and do hire really really smart people. Regrettably, these people aren't calling the shots. They code some cool code, which gets churned up by an insane management chain, cut, diced, sliced, rubbed, and finally ground out of existence. No products come from there. I have seen a lot of cool stuff from MS R&D, but nothing ever gets translated into a projects that is o

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by zrq ( 794138 )

          For all its faults, this is the reason why open source rocks. It plays above table. Its clear where the priorities lie.
          Yep, I pretty much agree with that.

  • Microsoft's Business Algorithm (Score:4, Funny)

    by pak9rabid ( 1011935 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @02:47PM (#21353537)
    if ( competingProduct.marketExists() && competingProduct.isCopyable() ) ourProduct = dodgePatents(competingProduct);
  • Why does the author think everyone uses Flickr? I've been using Ofoto (now Kodak) for years and am happy with it.
  • Who in their right minds buys Version 1 of anything Microsoft?

    Chris Mattern
  • I failed to see where he laid out "numerous challenges" that Microsoft will face when entering this market. Mind you, I don't suspect they'll succeed here, but I don't have a long list of reasons why, and neither did this guy.

  • yeah (Score:2)

    by m2943 ( 1140797 )
    Now that Ballmer has f*cking killed Google, he is going to f*cking kill Flickr, right?
  • Just make it as good as Flickr is now and give unlimited upload for free... Thats the only thing I miss on Flickr
  • Instead of buying up and copying? They BETTER not be getting patents out of this. (yeh, go ahead, mod me troll/flamebait)
  • Microsoft sits on this rather impressive technology called Photosynth. I'm sure most of you have seen/tried the demo. If not, go there now [live.com] (sorry guys, Windows only). MS has now optimized the algorithms sufficiently to allow home users to generate synths at their own machine. A "no comments" comment also hinted that MS is working on a video version of PhotoSynth. If they integrate PhotoSynth into a Flickr competitor they will have a *huge* appeal. It is all about appearance. This way you can allow guests to
  • before you start down this road, gawddamnit, i want my bag ass table! I don't want to wait 5-10 years for it - i want my 5-10 thousand dollar table now!
  • They'd do much better with their older strategy, buying the competition.

    All they have to do is dump a huge load of cash on YouTube and they'll be fine.

    What do you mean, "Google ain't selling"?
  • Its service is so good, if I were MS I would just buy it.
  • Will it work perfectly, bit to bit perfectly with ANY browser on ANY OS which was coded/maintained in 2007?

    I think everyone knows the answer to this question and that answer is exactly why it will become another joke.

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