I think it sucks, Microsoft decides that they do not make enough money with MSN Direct so I can now throw my expensive Weather Station away. Thank you Microsoft, keep growing at the expense of your customers.

I want to address MSN Direct's claim that radio technology is obsolete.

True, I can get weather off my smartphone. And if that draw-down requires the data tower of a cell provider it will draw more battery power. Yes I can boot up the computer and check weather. But that takes more effort than looking at my MSN Direct weather device on my desk. Yes I can buy a home-based weather station. But that means I have to put up external sensors that will only tell me what I already know about the day's weather --- not the next day or the rest of the week. Yes I can buy a WiFi weather station. Now I need to plug in a LAN to my network modem and configure a gateway. With MSN Direct and AccuWeather devices, all you do is pop in some batteries and you are good to go. Yes I can get all this and more at home. But what if I am at my remote vacation home? Internet and smartphone data is great for being something you can customize but it still takes more time and patience than a simple radio receiving device using the still-more reliable transmission method of the broadcast signal. Microsoft could have made an effort to sell of the MSN Direct technology. Instead, they made a huge initial investment, kept it going for fewer than 10 years and * off millions of consumers, all while contributing to the massive e-waste problem. Wrong move. And no, your customers will not trust you next time you have a product to launch. In case Microsoft hasn't noticed, consumers are spending less these days. Part of it is the economy, part of it is the fact that the pace of change is taking its toll on consumer confidence and patience. I hope AccuWeather devices, as sold through Brookstone and Ambient Weather, don't suffer the same fate. Yeah, I really like the buffering and reloading of AM/FM radio and video over wi-fi (even on a fast connection), nor weather over smartphone data connection. These devices are designed for interactivity. I want a device that does one thing well: load data from a ubiquitous and hassle-free broadcast signal and do it fast enough that you don't have to wait for anything to boot, refresh or load. That's what I call apples and oranges, Microsoft!

Worst of it is, the GPS and weather devices containing defunct MSN Direct technology are still being sold on Amazon and elsewhere with no warning to unsuspecting customers for whom this will not be the "old news" it may seem to existing (and disappointed) customers.

I blog about it here, in January 2012, on "Blank Weather Forecast On Your Device?: Blame MSN Direct"

http://socialcritic.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/has-your-weather-device-gone-blank-blame-msn-direct/

I suggest that frustrated consumers call the device manufacturers and the retailers who sold the product --- particularly if the 2012 disclosure is buried somewhere in a manual and not plainly disclosed on the box or product description online --- and give them a piece of your mind. As long as there is a demand, there is a market. TV didn't rid us of radio, Internet did not rid of us of TV and smartphones should not displace the FM radio transmission of weather information into dedicated single-purpose devices. Simple as that!