Consider for a second how Microsoft has migrated most of its MSN-branded services to the Windows Live brand (MSN Hotmail = Windows Live Hotmail, MSN Spaces = Windows Live Spaces, MSN Messenger = Windows Live Messenger), but has not touched its MSN Groups service since 2006, when the “unprofitable” MSN Chat service was shut down.

In fact, it mostly looks the same as it did back in 2003, when the homepage was changed from a mostly blue color to its current purple facade.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! Groups, which has historically been the largest web-based e-group service, has not made much improvement to its service in recent years. However, it has made paltry, barely-incremental improvements over the years in comparison to the moribund MSN Groups service. Furthermore, Yahoo! Groups has a very poor search function, but it is much better in returns than MSN Groups’ search function.

I think, in that case, that Yahoo! Groups may be one of the prize properties that Microsoft may want to add to its roster of services, primarily for sheer volume of members and ad revenue.