Hailstorm is dead

ziggy on 2002-04-11T15:11:56

This article was spotted on slashdot:

The service, originally code-named Hailstorm and later renamed My Services, was to be the clearest example of the company's ambitious .Net strategy. It was intended to permit an individual to keep an online persona independent of his or her desktop computer, supposedly safely stored as part of a vast data repository where there could be easy access to it from any point on the Internet.
...
Microsoft was unable to persuade either consumer companies or software developers that it had solved all of the privacy and security issues raised by the prospect of keeping personal information in a centralized repository....

A question for the peanut gallery: What Killed Hailstorm?

• Too many questions left unanswered: scalability, reliability, privacy
• Abundance of Anti-Hailstorm press
• Lack of Pro-Hailstorm press
• Microsoft believing too much of their own hype
• No one wants to parter with Microsoft for such an obvious extension of their monopoly
• Nogoodniks like Clay Shirkey and Tim O'Reilly

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The answer is...

djberg96 on 2002-04-11T16:40:21

All of the above.

Not dead, just sleeping

gnat on 2002-04-11T21:48:11

Those at ORA who are closest to Microsoft figure that'll be relaunched in a few months under a different name with a bit of camouflage. It was the "you're OWNING OUR DATA!" PR that killed it at the consumer level. It's still going strong inside the firewall of companies ("enterprise level", man I hate the E-word).

I now turn the floor over to those who are itching to quote the Monty Python dead parrot skit ...

--Nat