Saul Hansell picks up where Mary Jo Foley left last week, on the MSN vs Windows Live confusion, and some internal conflicts on which one should win out. Even Steve Berkowitz, Microsoft’s Senior VP of Online Services, is not sure. “I don’t know if Live is the right name,” he said, saying he had not decided what to do about it. But before that, he wants to make Microsoft’s search engine itself more appealing to consumers, which of course is tough as hell. But MSN is around, for now.
MSN, in Berkowitz’s conception, is a conventional portal that competes with Yahoo and AOL. Windows Live, which uses the Live.com site, is meant to look much like Google, a spare-looking page that can be customized with modules from various services and news feeds. Hah, now we know.