(Column) - Earlier today, a job posting on Microsoft's career site revealed that the software giant is working on a Flickr of its own. Okay, great. Now tell me why I should care? I've been using Flickr for a long time now, and all of my photos are neatly organized in separate albums (or sets, as Flickr calls it). All of my friends and family members have the links to my Flickr homepage, and life is great. It has all the features and options that I want, and the charges are reasonable for me to not mind paying for it. If for nothing else, at least I know my photos are safely backed up in a remote location. Obviously after Flickr was acquired, a host of other photo sharing options popped up, but Flickr continues to be in the lead. There's a reason for that, and others should get the hint. Flickr satisfies our need to share and store photos online in easy steps. And if others haven't shaken Flickr's dominance yet, what makes Microsoft so hopeful?

In fact, Microsoft should be the last one to get into the online photo sharing space, especially considering it's pitiful track record with Web solutions. The software giant just doesn't have the magic that online services companies need to succeed, and unfortunately, the company isn't smart enough to acquire a budding startup. Go figure! Keep playing this ego game, and you will land flat on your face every single time, Microsoft. Back to my original point, what could Microsoft possibly do to beat Flickr?

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Sure, a better UI could be in store, maybe gigabytes worth of storage at no cost, a few additional features for professional photographers and so forth and so on. If you think none of this sounds exciting, you would be right. It doesn't. And it isn't. What's to stop Flickr from not redesigning their layout or letting go of the subscriber model if they sense a considerable threat from Microsoft. Yahoo knows it needs to protect Flickr's dominant market share, and they will do just that. Despite Microsoft's buying (i.e., marketing) power, I doubt Microsoft would attract a lot of attention. The company just can't pull it off.

As users, we are already used to a certain way of doing things. A certain group of name brand, early Web 2.0 applications that everyone uses. There's familiarity, habits, and existing user base that keeps us intact. It's natural to expect Microsoft to outdo Flickr in added features, but it's overload. Unfortunately, the software maker will get hammered if it keeps its photo solution simple. Talk about a chicken and egg scenario. But either way you cut it, Microsoft isn't going to crack Flickr, just like it never cracked Apple.

So, here's my advice to Microsoft: either drop the photo sharing service altogether (which I doubt you'll do considering the project is well underway) or go acquire one of the thousands of other photo sharing services. You are so fond of other independent services. Why don't you go pick up one of them? At least then you could lay the blame on the founding team and how you didn't see problems in the beginning. That will save your native development team some embarrassment. And after a few failed attempts already, let's not demoralize those developers.