Hailstorm remembered … with a side-glance at Google

Remember Hailstorm, Microsoft’s doomed attempt to host other business’s data on its servers? Some at Redmond still do and are just a little envious at the way Google takes on the same task.

Scobleizer believes Microsoft jumped in too fast, without the full trust of its customers. Unlike Google.

The other thing that’s hurting Microsoft? We don’t have a monetization gadget. Do we pay bloggers yet to include components? Not yet. Google does. That gets bloggers and Silicon Valley businesspeople to feel good about including their components on Web pages (and bootstraps them into this new world in a way that keeps people from screaming). Oh, and they didn’t name it “Hailstorm.”

And of Hailstorm? Dare Obasanjo says, “At the time, Microsoft’s pitch with Hailstorm was that its online retailers and other potential Hailstorm partners should give all this juicy customer data to Microsoft then pay to access it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that most of them told Microsoft to take a long walk off a short pier.”

[From Scobleizer and Dare Obasanjo]