Microsoft turns its back on services

Microsoft has admitted to a U-turn over the delivery of its flagship .Net vision for web services.

The software giant has all but turned its back on providing services for its .Net vision, preferring instead to sell other service providers the software.

Responding to an article in the New York Times today which claimed Microsoft has shelved its high-profile .Net MyServices initiative, Microsoft .Net business strategist Peter Bell admitted a policy shift had occurred.

He said: "We've done some learning in public, there's no doubt. The feedback we had was that customers liked the vision, but wanted a different model. The long and short of it is that we've responded."

However, Bell absolutely denied the shift means an abandonment of the MyServices initiative - originally called Hailstorm - launched with a fanfare just over a year ago.

The change that had occurred, he said, was in moving from a model where Microsoft controlled and provided the services centrally, holding consumer information on its own servers, to a federated model where companies get to keep their own customer data.

Microsoft's MyServices vision was of a place on the web where consumers could store their details and preferences to allow web services providers to offer them services based on that information.

However, after launch Microsoft was heavily criticised for trying to run the service itself, with opponents saying this required giving Microsoft an unacceptable amount of power.

The vision would have seen Microsoft the sole guardian of data on millions of consumers across the globe.

Now Microsoft has opted for a model where it can just sell the MyServices software to companies who can then run the services themselves for their own customers.

Bell said: "The good news for us is that this means a shift to a traditional business model we know all about - that of selling software to business."

The New York Times article today said Microsoft has been forced into this about-face because not a single large customer had signed up to its original strategy.

Bell refused to admit the shift meant a complete abandonment of Microsoft as a service provider. He said: "We will just be one of the many operators."