MSN

MSN (stylized as msn, originally standing for The Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and appsfor Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995.

Along with the release of Windows 95, Microsoft debuted The Microsoft Network, a subscription-based dial-up online service that it later turned into an Internet service provider named MSN Dial-up. At the same time, the company launched a new web portal named Microsoft Internet Start and set it as the first default home page of Internet Explorer, its original web browser. In 1998, Microsoft renamed and moved this web portal to the domain name MSN.com, where it has remained since then.

In addition to its original MSN Dial-up service, Microsoft has used the 'MSN' brand name for a wide variety of products and services over the years, notably Hotmail (which is now Outlook.com), Messenger (which was once synonymous with 'MSN' in Internet slang and has now been replaced by Skype), and its search engine (which is now Bing), as well as several other rebranded and discontinued services.

The current website and suite of apps offered by MSN was first introduced by Microsoft in 2014 as part of a complete redesign and relaunch. MSN is based in the United States and offers international versions of its portal for dozens of countries around the world

Microsoft first offered content from its MSN web portal on mobile devices in the early 2000s through a service it called Pocket MSN (in line with its Pocket PC products of the era) and later renamed 'MSN Mobile'. The original MSN Mobile software was preloaded on many PDAs and cell phones and usually provided access to legacy MSN services like email, instant messaging,blogs, and web search. Some wireless carriers charged a premium to access it. As many former MSN properties were spun off to Windows Live, Bing, and other successors in late 2000s, theMicrosoft Mobile Services division took over the development of mobile apps related to those services.

In the meantime, Microsoft's MSN mobile apps took on a more content-related focus along with the web portal itself. Previous versions of MSN apps that were bundled with Windows Mobileand early versions of Windows Phone, as well as MSN apps for Android and the iPad in the early 2010s, were primarily repositories for news articles found on MSN.com Other earlier MSN mobile apps included versions of MSN Weather and MSN Money for Windows Mobile 6.5,and 'MSN Money Stocks' and a men's magazine called 'MSN OnIt' for Windows Phone 7

Along with the 2014 redesign of the MSN web portal, Microsoft relaunched many of the Bing apps that originally shipped with Windows andWindows Phone as a suite of MSN apps. In December 2014, the new apps became available across all the other major mobile device platforms as well: iOS, Android, and Fire OS.

There are currently seven apps in the suite: MSN News, MSN Weather, MSN Sports, MSN Money, MSN Health & Fitness, MSN Food & Drink, and MSN Travel.^[39] Each app brings a unified experience with the MSN website and synchronizes preferences across devices; for example, setting a list of stocks to watch on MSN.com will show the same data on the MSN Money app on all devices where the user is signed in with a Microsoft account.

Before the rebranding from Bing to MSN, the News, Weather, Sports, Money, and Travel apps first shipped with Windows 8, while the Health & Fitness and Food & Drink apps first appeared in Windows 8.1

After its acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone division, Microsoft also started bundling MSN services with its Nokia-branded feature phones, though currently the only supported model is the Nokia 215.^[42][43][44] In addition to these apps, Microsoft develops a separate set of mobile appsspecifically for MSN China.