Let’s leave Halo 3 out of this, for now.

Yesterday Hugh Macleod wrote up his thoughts on Microsoft.

He puts out a theory that Microsoft would be more loved if it told a better story.

I’ve been studying my own reactions to Microsoft lately and I think it’s a lot deeper than that.

I have a REASON to love Microsoft. It propelled my career into a whole nother level. But lately even that hasn’t been enough.

I’ve been asking myself why?

To me it comes down to expectations. Microsoft is like the genius child who has rich and smart parents. Society holds huge expections for such people. If they don’t succeed the story is it’s a child who hasn’t lived up to his/her potential.

Microsoft is much the same way.

We see Google having fun with docs and spreadsheets.

We see Facebook and Plaxo and LinkedIn (not to mention Ning and Broadband Mechanics) having fun with social networking.

We see Flickr, Zooomr (one developer!), SmugMug, Photobucket, and a raft of others having fun with photography.

We see Apple having fun with all sorts of stuff.

We see Amazon having fun with datacenters.

And on, and on.

But where is the kid who has rich and smart parents? Yeah, Microsoft brought us the “Demo of the Year” last year: Photosynth. But what you didn’t read on TechCrunch is that it takes up to nine hours to process one set of images so, while it is a killer demo, it won’t be a product you and I can use anytime soon.

Continue at Scobleizer