Thursday, March 28

7 products from the “Microsoft graveyard” that are no longer there and that we miss (or maybe not)


The company that created the Windows operating systems and the Office office suite is also known for a host of services and products that have had an uneven track record.

Some were luckier than others, and various circumstances ended up causing a few to end up in the Microsoft cemetery, that place that serves as a small tribute to those Redmond products and services that were no longer available. Here are some of the highlights we had to say goodbye to.

Windows Phone (2010-2019)

For a while it seemed windows phone, Microsoft’s mobile operating system, may have had a chance. Its unique interface with those animated tiles posed a breath of fresh air compared to the proposals of iOS and Android, and in fact the launch of Windows 10 and the Universal Windows Applications (UWA) promised great things in this field.

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Unfortunately expectations were never met. Along the way were the controversial acquisition of Nokia and an erratic terminal strategy that was also compromised by a software catalog in which there were always great absences. In the end Microsoft threw in the towel. What a pity.

Windows Movie Maker (2000-2017)

If someone wanted to create a short video quickly and easily on Windows, had a fantastic tool. It was called Windows Movie Maker and it was with us for almost two decades. Then suddenly it disappeared.

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No one knows why Microsoft removed it from Windows 10, but that is probably one of the biggest complaints about this operating system and its successor, which have been offering alternatives for some time without any of them coming to fruition. Movie Maker can still be downloaded for unofficial use, and we do not understand how something that fulfilled and worked perfectly disappeared like this instead of, for example, being adapted to the new times.

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MSN Messenger (1999-2013)

Microsoft’s instant messaging application – later renamed Windows Live Messenger – was at one time the absolute king of services of this type. It competed with other giants of the time such as ICQ, AIM or Yahoo!, and for some time there was even talk of the ‘MSN generation’ due to the number of teenagers who used it.

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The problem for MSN is that it had to compete with the rise of social networks in general and Facebook in particular. It was no longer cool to be on Messenger, but on Facebook. Users migrated to that service, and while MSN was able to recapture its opportunity, it was WhatsApp that eventually became the norm for millions of users.

Microsoft Kinect (2010-2017)

Microsoft Kinect was the peripheral that could change everything (a little). Inspired by the Nintendo Wii, this device made the Xbox 360 extend its lifespan with that other way of playing, and for a while it was thought that full-body gaming had a great future.

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I did not have it. Microsoft made a fatal mistake by forcing you to buy Kinect with the new Xbox One when these consoles launched. The peripheral did not contribute much to many people, and the support of the industry and users faded until Kinect ended up in the background and disappeared with the launch of the Xbox Series X.

Windows Media Center (2002-2015)

Nowadays there is a whole underworld around Kodi, that prodigious application with which having a multimedia center is within everyone’s reach. Microsoft had an app like this: it was called windows media center.

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The tool allowed managing all types of content and made sense of a whole generation of “living room PCs” that over time lost their meaning: Smart TVs and HDMI dongles —Chromecasts, Fire TV Sticks— and the rise of streaming services made that Windows function disappear, even though Kodi has shown that such a project continued to have (a lot) of sense.

Encarta (1993-2009)

Before the wonderful Wikipedia existed, we consulted encyclopedias on paper. For those of us who are in our forties, the normal thing in our parents’ house was to have one per volume, but at Microsoft they wanted to adapt that concept to the new times and they created Encarta.

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This encyclopedia boasted of containing the information of 29 volumes of a conventional encyclopedia on a single CD-ROM. It was also cheaper, which made its success during its first years remarkable. What happened? well what in 2001 came Wikipediawhich would end up making Encarta stop making sense.

Zune (2006-2012)

The iPod was the portable music player that everyone had or wanted to have. Apple was clear that this was a gold mine, and its particular revolution in the music industry wanted to be copied by Microsoft, which took a colossal smack with the Zunewhich defined both the player and the music purchasing, downloading and management services.

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The player, eye, had his that. The user interface of that curious player made all of Microsoft change its look, and although the color model was joked a lot poop Brown, the problem with the Zune is that it arrived late and wrong. The iPhone was just around the corner, and with it the progressive farewell to MP3 players, iPod included.

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Image | Thomas Hawk

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