Microsoft imagined a social network built into Longhorn even before MySpace

Windows Longhorn was Microsoft’s overambitious replacement for Windows XP which was eventually cancelled and replaced with the simpler Windows Vista, but I don’t think we really knew how ambitious Microsoft’s plans were.

Today the Beta Collector account, run by Stephen Chapman, revealed another concept Microsoft was working on called Longhorn Live.

Longhorn Live was a social network based on Windows Live, at a time the most popular messaging platform in the world. Microsoft planned to expand it to a microblogging service with a desktop metaphor, with the messaging features being built into Longhorn via desktop widgets. According to the offer page it would have supported SMS and voice mail also.

Longhorn Live was meant to be built into Windows and promoted from there, which likely raised all kinds of anti-trust issues. The concept was however way ahead of its time, but as a paid service would likely not have done that well.

Microsoft was however looking to make the deal more attractive by building in a PC Health feature, which included antivirus support.

The concept is from 2003/2004 and MySpace only launched in 2005. As it stands it appears to be another missed opportunity by Microsoft.

What do our readers think of Longhorn Live? Let us know below.