For all those watching the AOL/MSN/Google M&A game, Microsoft’s recent reorg, covered here (NYT), is worth noting. The company is creating three divisions, and the one I find critical is what is called “Platform Products and Services”. This division combines Windows and MSN, and that is an important shift – the two are increasingly interdependent. Applications like Office are now in a separate division, as are Entertainment and Devices.
Ray Ozzie (speaking with MSN chief Yusuf Mehdi at Web 2.0) is now reporting to Bill Gates and overseeing all three divisions integration with the web. Interesting as well.
I was starting to think that perhaps Microsoft was going to let MSN go and focus on evolving Windows to the open Web OS, independent of MSN’s content focus. Now, I’m not so sure. More considered thinking when I get off this book merry go round….