Microsoft has been working on MSNM for a year now. It was announced in July of last year and was supposed to be working (in beta form) that August. There was also a report from the same time that said that Microsoft was part of a group working on a standard messenging protocol. (I can't find it again, but you'll forgive me because it was a year ago.) Microsoft did not stick to their schedule and gave this reason: "We went down a technology path that didn't work as well as we thought, so we retrenched."
I don't have any inside info on the MSNM project, but I do know that references to it started appearing in other applications (beta versions of Outlook Express, etc) in October of 1998. For those of you who think Microsoft has been slow to release such a project, you are correct, but they have been working on one for a while.
This is *my* current view on what Microsoft is doing, I have nothing to substanciate it other than observation. Be warned, I don't think MS is evil and what I have to say reflects that view.
In an attempt to make the life of every user easier, and make open communication more possible Microsoft wanted a standard for messenging. That way the user wouldn't have to learn how to (or be forced to) install/run/configure/use a handful of programs. Instead they could just use one vendor independent program and communicate with everyone. Failing to reach any common ground with other companies, Microsoft decided to do the next best thing. With MSNM one program currently does the work of two. And it appears if other protocols will be added later.
Is this better then a unified standard? No. Is this better then running serveral apps that do the same thing? I think so.
With Yahoo! also supporting AIM I would have though that AOL would be cheering, because in order to chat with anyone on AOL you have to first sign-up through AIM. This is going to create more traffic for AOL. As we all know on the net traffic=money.
But, let's get back to Microsoft. Is MS going to be happy with implimenting everyones protocols in their product and only have partial cross protocol capability? (eg the ICQ protocol has many more features then the AIM one) I don't think so. I think MS wants to create a true standard. Does MSNM reflect this? Let's take a look.
Another disclaimer first. I have no knowledge of the internal working of MSNM, but here is possible scenerio based on what appears to be happening.
In order to use MSNM you have to have an account with Hotmail. Now a lot of people are going to say that this is because MS wants more people to use Hotmail. This may be true, but couldn't it also be the case that the e-mail address is used as the unique identifier and MS can therefore only verify the owners of people who use Hotmail. If this were a standard that would mean that the users e-mail domain would be responsible for verifying that user before allowing them to be online. Each partisipating domain would then have it's own messenging server software that communicates with the others. This would mean the server could not be controled by one group, and that clients could be available from multiple vendors.
Also, what is the feature set of MSNM currently? Well, it sucks. There isn't much to it. For features it's certainly not a threat to ICQ. But, wait. MS has been working on this for a year, and all it does is let you send messages and give yourself different status'. What's with that? Well, if they do want a standard, wouldn't it be nice to get input from other people before you impliment everything?
In short, I think MS wants to do the Right Thing for users (any hey, that might also be the Right Thing for the company)and is causing a stir to get some media attention (and geek attention) on the subject.
Wow, I'm surprised that there isn't more of a discussion going on about this book. Steve Litt's artice seems to be a very brief synopsis of Steven Levy's 430+ page book. Those of you looking for Kernigan and Ritchie to be included will still be disappointed, but the people/machines this book does cover, it covers well.
The book is in three parts, exploring the canonical AI hackers of MIT, the hardware hackers who invented the personal computer industry in Silicon Valley, and the third-generation game hackers in the early 1980s.
Having been written in 1984, the more recent heros aren't included. However if you want to know what life was like at MIT, from what they ate, to where they slept, to their ethics (winners and loosers), to the TMRC. Or, if you want to know about the Homebrew Computer Club, or what life was like at Sierra-Online and the sinful history of it's founders. If you want info on Richard Garriott (Lord British), Steven "Woz" Wozniak, Steve Russell (creator of the first arcade game, written on the PDP-1), David Silver (not from 90210), Richard Greenblatt and Tom Knight, Lee Felsenstein, John Draper (Captain Crunch), and a slew of others. Or if you're interested in a bit of history on the early machines such as the IBM 704, Altair 8800, Apple II, PDP-x, TX-0, Atari 800, plus some more.
This isn't a text book, but rather a non-fiction story about "a unique new breed of American hero."
Barnes and Noble have the book for online ordering for $10.36.
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Microsoft has been working on MSNM for a year now. It was announced in July of last year and was supposed to be working (in beta form) that August. There was also a report from the same time that said that Microsoft was part of a group working on a standard messenging protocol. (I can't find it again, but you'll forgive me because it was a year ago.) Microsoft did not stick to their schedule and gave this reason: "We went down a technology path that didn't work as well as we thought, so we retrenched."
I don't have any inside info on the MSNM project, but I do know that references to it started appearing in other applications (beta versions of Outlook Express, etc) in October of 1998. For those of you who think Microsoft has been slow to release such a project, you are correct, but they have been working on one for a while.
This is *my* current view on what Microsoft is doing, I have nothing to substanciate it other than observation. Be warned, I don't think MS is evil and what I have to say reflects that view.
In an attempt to make the life of every user easier, and make open communication more possible Microsoft wanted a standard for messenging. That way the user wouldn't have to learn how to (or be forced to) install/run/configure/use a handful of programs. Instead they could just use one vendor independent program and communicate with everyone. Failing to reach any common ground with other companies, Microsoft decided to do the next best thing. With MSNM one program currently does the work of two. And it appears if other protocols will be added later.
Is this better then a unified standard? No. Is this better then running serveral apps that do the same thing? I think so.
With Yahoo! also supporting AIM I would have though that AOL would be cheering, because in order to chat with anyone on AOL you have to first sign-up through AIM. This is going to create more traffic for AOL. As we all know on the net traffic=money.
But, let's get back to Microsoft. Is MS going to be happy with implimenting everyones protocols in their product and only have partial cross protocol capability? (eg the ICQ protocol has many more features then the AIM one) I don't think so. I think MS wants to create a true standard. Does MSNM reflect this? Let's take a look.
Another disclaimer first. I have no knowledge of the internal working of MSNM, but here is possible scenerio based on what appears to be happening.
In order to use MSNM you have to have an account with Hotmail. Now a lot of people are going to say that this is because MS wants more people to use Hotmail. This may be true, but couldn't it also be the case that the e-mail address is used as the unique identifier and MS can therefore only verify the owners of people who use Hotmail. If this were a standard that would mean that the users e-mail domain would be responsible for verifying that user before allowing them to be online. Each partisipating domain would then have it's own messenging server software that communicates with the others. This would mean the server could not be controled by one group, and that clients could be available from multiple vendors.
Also, what is the feature set of MSNM currently? Well, it sucks. There isn't much to it. For features it's certainly not a threat to ICQ. But, wait. MS has been working on this for a year, and all it does is let you send messages and give yourself different status'. What's with that? Well, if they do want a standard, wouldn't it be nice to get input from other people before you impliment everything?
In short, I think MS wants to do the Right Thing for users (any hey, that might also be the Right Thing for the company)and is causing a stir to get some media attention (and geek attention) on the subject.
I think I'll stop now.
Wow, I'm surprised that there isn't more of a discussion going on about this book. Steve Litt's artice seems to be a very brief synopsis of Steven Levy's 430+ page book. Those of you looking for Kernigan and Ritchie to be included will still be disappointed, but the people/machines this book does cover, it covers well.
From Levy's page, linked to above:
The book is in three parts, exploring the canonical AI hackers of MIT, the hardware hackers who invented the personal computer industry in Silicon Valley, and the third-generation game hackers in the early 1980s.
Having been written in 1984, the more recent heros aren't included. However if you want to know what life was like at MIT, from what they ate, to where they slept, to their ethics (winners and loosers), to the TMRC. Or, if you want to know about the Homebrew Computer Club, or what life was like at Sierra-Online and the sinful history of it's founders. If you want info on Richard Garriott (Lord British), Steven "Woz" Wozniak, Steve Russell (creator of the first arcade game, written on the PDP-1), David Silver (not from 90210), Richard Greenblatt and Tom Knight, Lee Felsenstein, John Draper (Captain Crunch), and a slew of others. Or if you're interested in a bit of history on the early machines such as the IBM 704, Altair 8800, Apple II, PDP-x, TX-0, Atari 800, plus some more.
This isn't a text book, but rather a non-fiction story about "a unique new breed of American hero."
Barnes and Noble have the book for online ordering for $10.36.