Microsofts .NET plan, which some observers see as part of a comprehensive strategy to battle AOL Time Warner for mastery of the online universe, is built on the premise that users will allow the consolidation of their personal information on centralized Microsoft server computers. The payoff is supposed to be "seamless" access to a vast array of online services. But to critics, the consolidation of e-mail, instant messaging and other goodies in the hands of Microsoft -- beyond, obviously, sounding antitrust alarms -- would make everyone more dependent on Microsofts software infrastructure. And that infrastructure is already prone to virus attacks and other weaknesses that the rest of the Net has so far managed to evolve strong defenses against.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/21/hotmail/index.html
