The New York Post claims Microsoft is in talk with Time Warner to buy a stake in AOL, via Bloomberg:

Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company, would pay New York-based Time Warner an unspecified amount of cash for a stake in AOL and combine it with its Internet unit, MSN, the newspaper said, citing two unidentified people familiar with the situation.

If this rumour is accurate, why would Microsoft do this? They pass up better acquisition possibilities like Flickr and Konfabulator and announce at the PDC05 that they are doing Microsoft Gadgets? Huh? Maybe Microsft Gadgets will be cool — in the future — but right now I think their PDC which they only do every couple years is being upstaged by Google, Yahoo and other technology releases and news.

It’s kind of sad that this is happening because Vista has some promising things coming like superfetch, significantly improved RSS integration in Office and Vista and more according to Scoble. He cites in that post a couple of attendees saying “the hype created … is totally worth it” and “amazing first day” so perhaps the rest of us that aren’t there need more time to see stuff coming out of there.

Yesterday, tech.memeorandum was dominated by stories about Google’s Blog Search and today Yahoo’s Instant Search and other non-PDC stories. Bloggers, at least, aren’t talking in huge numbers about PDC05 (1,226 posts) vs Google Blog Search (2,106)

Sure, there is very good Channel 9 PDC05 coverage, including podcasts I am going to listen to some of those a bit later. I’m certain there will be several things to get excited about as a developer.

Unfortunately, from a customer perspective it’s still a wait, wait, wait scenario for the most part with Microsoft. Bill Gates would probably attribute this upstaging in the PR deparment to it currently being Google’s “honeymoon” but Microsoft is missing key opportunities, IMO. If they don’t ship (and they are releasing some new things, keep reading), then they should buy the right kinds of companies/services and if they don’t want to buy (it’s not a can’t situation there), then they shouldn’t be surprised by other companies grab the interest and PR.

However, from a developer perspective, times are shaping up to be pretty good at Microsoft right now. MSN Developer Center was released yesterday which serves as a portal for the various developer areas: MSN search Toolbar with Desktop Search plugins, Microsoft Gadgets, MSN Virtual Earth and MSN Messenger. Lots of different things for a developer to plug into and offer goodies!

Now back to AOL — or AOHELL as some former disgruntled customers call it — this is just the type of company that Microsoft should try to avoid at all costs. It’s just a rumour, remember. And my opinion if the rumour is true. Hmm, what do you think?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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