Is Microsoft afraid ?

Microsoft came out with Microsoft Live Writer today. What surprised me was that it is one of the first tools which I can think of in recent years which has support for non-Microsoft products.

Remember the good old days of Novell servers when Microsoft came with a file server which could talk to Novell servers and what about the services for Unix or Microsoft Java VM?

I know everyone is excited about Microsoft doing this, but I being me, am skeptical about the true intentions behind this. Infact, most of the times microsoft releases a product supporting other non-microsoft products, is because when its afraid of loosing market share to a competitor. So the real question is, who is microsoft really afraid of other blogging software or services out there ? Blogspot, MySpace and services like wordpress, typepad are significant competitors to MSN spaces. Microsoft Live Writer is not very different from any other Free Microsoft products in the sense that it is designed to do one thing. Convert.

That being said, I'm glad it has jumped into the market. I can see a lot of improvement in overall blogging experience across the board. Oh and BTW I posted this entry using Microsoft Live Writer.

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