Microsoft prepares to Sway

art.wozniak.courtesyThe dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth rumour which claims that Microsoft is preparing to launch a new product called Sway.

Microsoft has been a busy Vole registering some domain names that use the term CDN and Sway.

For those who came in late, CDN is content delivery network which means that Vole is getting into the entertainment biz.

Microsoft has registered a trademark for “Sway” with a fairly wide brief, covering computer software; computer application software; online computer software and software as a service.

What appears to be happening is that Microsoft likes the moves that Apple and Netflix have made to move content on to their own CDN services and away from those provided by third parties to improve content streaming to improve and better control the quality of service.

But there is a slight problem with the rumour. Microsoft already has its own CDN services and offers this as a service to third-party developers, via its Azure platform. In fact its existing product is something that Apple can only dream of.  Another theory is that Microsoft is planning a new marketing push to “sway” more developers to its platform and away from the likes of Amazon’s Cloudfront.

Another idea is that Microsoft wants to create a new streaming service. There have been mutters about Microsoft launching a streaming gameplay service. Vole has Twitch embedded in Xbox, but with a $1 billion acquisition of Twitch by Google all but confirmed, Microsoft wants to get a new product to replace it.