10 years later

Elsewhere, Todd Bishop has put together a nifty retrospective look at the release of Microsoft's seminal Windows 95, which happened 10 years ago today. He suggested that I should share my own perspective on the event, so here goes:

I was a beta tester, privy to an advance peak (complete with advance headaches) at the Modern Windows Experience. It's hard to believe now just how revolutionary Win95 was, but 10 years ago it delivered a quantum leap forward in usability, intuitiveness and attractiveness. Compared to the clunkiness of prior versions of Windows, 95 was positively ... Mac-like. If you don't remember what Windows was like before 95, trust me: you're lucky.

Of course, nowadays we're all so used to living with Modern Windows that no one wonders anymore why you have to click the "Start" button to shut down your computer. But back then, people ragged Microsoft about that counterintuitive bit of labeling. (You know, I still haven't heard a particularly good explanation for it.)

I also worked on developing content for the first iteration of what eventually became MSN. But back then, before Bill Gates latched onto the Internet, it was an AOL-style dial-up service called The Microsoft Network. In a way, though, MSN 95 had the same basic mission as MSN 2005: to be a "portal" offering unique content and services to members. (The current implementation works a lot better.)

I helped build Microsoft Network service prototypes for my then-employer, American City Business Journals, and the regional office of the Small Business Administration. Neither effort bore fruit, although I demonstrated the seedlings during a Microsoft dog-and-pony show in Washington, D.C., that August (my one experience as a trade-show shill). The whole project quickly became moot after everyone decided that the Web was the place to be instead.

ACBJ eventually did enter a partnership with Microsoft involving its small-business hub, then called bCentral, and MSNBC.com.

Few people today probably remember The Microsoft Network -- but, astonishingly, you can still read the introductory literature in Microsoft's encyclopedic TechNet knowledgebase. I never cease to be amazed by what you can find in there.