MSN Opening Up to Developers

New MSN APIs will let developers incorporate MSN Internet Search results and Virtual Earth maps in their Web sites and applications and integrate simple applications into the MSN Messenger interface. The new offerings are free and are not intended to earn revenue from developers but rather to help MSN services reach a larger audience of end users and advertisers. The offerings also begin to address a long-term threat that Web-based companies such as Google will encourage developers to build consumer applications on top of their services rather than on Microsoft’s software platforms.

MSN and the Platform Strategy

In the past, MSN has licensed some services to developers, including Alerts (for sending one-way text messages to MSN Messenger users), ClearLead (for managing sales leads), and Passport (for authenticating Web site visitors). None of these services ever attracted many developers, however, and MSN has largely abandoned the plan of charging developers to use its services—for example, ClearLead has been discontinued, and MSN no longer offers Passport to third-party sites.