Both companies still love you very much, sport. They just can’t live together any more. Maybe Microsoft can take you to the zoo one of these days. Would you like that, tiger?
The partnership officially dissolved as Comcast, parent company of NBC, bought up Microsoft’s share in the venture and the site became NBCNews.com.
Seemed like a good idea, lo those many years ago, when NBC News used its expertise in news reporting and Microsoft used its know-how on computers and such to form MSNBC. And it worked out for a long time, at least in Internet years. But Microsoft hasn’t been happy with the deal recently, chafing at being contractually bound to feature MSNBC news content above all others on its own branded sites. Microsoft has also had to battle the perception that it has a liberal bias since MSNBC, the cable channel, decided to tack hard to the left to provide an alternative to the conservative ratings champ, Fox News.
Likewise, NBC has been saddled with Microsoft, a company that has been an also-ran in tech with products like Bing, Windows Phone, and the late Zune.
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