Microsoft and NBC Officially Split
On Sunday night, MSNBC.com did something that successful Web sites very rarely do: rename itself. The site became NBCNews.com, signifying the end of a relationship between NBC and that dates back to the beginning of the commercial Web. Next year, MSNBC.com will become a website singly for the cable channel MSNBC, possibly relieving some previous confusion. NBC is controlled by Comcast, which will be acquiring Microsoft's 50% stake to essentially solidify position in the web-based news genre.The precise value of the acquisition is not being made public but will likely be in the range of several hundred million dollars. Television news operations are looking more and more to increase their online presence in pursuit of advertising dollars inexpansion of audience. NBC will likely realize advantages by having their staffs become more closely knit and improving digital distribution of television products.
When NBC and Microsoft first got together to form MSNBC.com it was considered to be a highly advisable partnership for many reasons. Having Microsoft's proven ability in web development and NBC's proven ability in newsgathering brought together into one venue made perfect sense at the time. Times change, some things change-some things never do, but it did seem over time that the partnership between these two giants may well have seen its best days in the past and that was being realized by both entities.This split between NBC and Microsoft was indeed a long time coming, and allows each to pursue their specific goals in what is likely a more efficient manner.Due to the nature of the relationship, there were certain restrictions that will no longer hold back either entity from doing business the way they perceive as being needed.This is probably a good thing for both, and is highly unlikely to affect the average news viewer and/or the average web surfer.
