Microsoft and the New York Times Team Up for “Times Reader”

BetaNews is reporting that the New York Times has released a desktop application which enables you to read the newspaper's content on your computer. The "Times Reader" was developed, in part, by Microsoft using the Windows Presentation Foundation which is currently set to be a part of Microsoft's latest OS in January: Windows Vista.

"Specifically, Vista's WPF display technologies will enable Times content to be automatically adjusted for any screen size, with users able to customize font size and content relevance. The application will utilize the same font styles as the print edition of the New York Times."

Forgive me, but I fail to see the point in this. Microsoft is spending countless hours integrating RSS technologies into their upcoming OS so that a user is able to acquire ANY online content within many different parts of the OS. The article states that Microsoft "hopes [Reader] will serve as a starting point for other organizations looking to take advantage of the new capabilities coming in Windows Vista." My question is simple. Why not spend time trying to UNIFY various content sources under one colorful and useful application? Unification is something Microsoft [namely, Bill Gates] doesn't get. Google, on the other hand, understands it big time and it's one of the many reasons Google proves that they are useful. My hope is that these "other organizations" completely overlook this "starting point" … mainly because I don't want fifteen different applications to read fifteen sources of news on the Web.

technorati tags: rss, windows, vista, times

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