--- title: Why Microsoft is the most important company in RSS date: 2006-01-06T21:05:00Z modified: 2006-01-06T21:05:00Z permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/why-microsoft-is-the-most-important-company-in-rss/" type: post status: publish excerpt: "" wpid: 442 categories: - Uncategorized timestamp: 2006-01-06T21:05:00Z tags: - Uncategorized --- Because you need to [subscribe from somewhere](http://www.globelogger.com/item.php?id=556). The A-list may prefer pure web-based solutions but the Vista wave will take feeds into the mainstream…. allowing [Metcalfe’s Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law) to kick in. Remember when Microsoft adopted TCP/IP? HTML? XML? Embrace, extend, and explode the market. If feeds are to move into the mainstream its going to need offerings packaged for both mainstream consumer and enterprise users. I just can’t see anyone else out there set up to provide such a package. - [Google pack](http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/01/05/tell-me-its-not-a-software-bundle/)? I don’t think so. Office may have begun life as a bunch of shrinkwrapped seperate apps held together with a rubber band, but I don’t think that kind of model will work for RSS/IM/multimedia integration that my mum can use. - IBM? Apparently doesn’t want to build a Microsoft client alternative, not one that will touch consumers anyway. Maybe if IBM does something like [this](http://www.redmonk.com/MT-2.661/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1169) it will be in the game. - Sun? Could maybe do something with Google around a network appliance endpoint like a Sun Ray. If Google does announce such a thing as CES then I take this post back… - Apple’s new Intel machines might change the game, but I am not sure the timeframe is on the Cupertino company’s side. - Wireless providers? Won’t get it, because they like walled gardens. I have a post in mind about why Vista is going to be major launch, like Win 95, which not even the Microsoft Vista team seems to believe. But its not the OS that will sell the OS, its the integrated handling of standard specifications that will sell the OS. I am not the biggest fan of [integrated aggravation](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/000660.html) but its a model that works for hundreds of millions of people. RSS, rather than XML per se, may be the killer spec for Office 12. Microsoft even has time to steal some of the emerging ideas in OPML handling before the big launch. Talking of stealing ideas, that is one of Microsoft’s problems. There is no obvious target yet for the “IE” of the RSS wave. If anyone else had of really nailed what a RSS client looked like it would be a shoe in. I take [Alex’s point](http://blogs.msdn.com/alexbarn/archive/2005/10/08/478598.aspx). But would argue we’re still just at the very beginning of the upcoming dirssruption. 2005 was not the end of RSS adoption, or the beginning of the end of RSS adoption, but rather the end of the beginning. Turn the Long Tail the other way round. The mainstream is way up there. So this post is really just a flameholder. Or maybe a prediction for early 07. Without all the delays to Longhorn, Microsoft wouldn’t be in a position to package all the bits and pieces needed to make feeds valuable and provide a reason to upgrade. Who would have thought product delays would create such a great opportunity. Longhorn was technology _in search of a set of use cases_. Vista on the other hand, will be technology packaged to _fulfil a set of use cases_, loosely defined as Web 2.0. That’s a big difference. Google, Yahoo, MSN, all need a client to get the most out of the service. That is the bottom line. If we’re going to the GYM we still want PCs that make the most of the services available. 2006 will be about building cool Web 2.0 apps, more flickrs, deliciouses and so on. 2007 will be the year when they cross the chasm. Networks needs endpoints to be valuable. Volume wins. I thought about back-pedalling on the headline but couldnt be bothered. I am happy to see why and how people disagree. ——————————————————- Disclaimer: IBM, Microsoft and Sun are clients. Google and Apple are not.