Microsoft tried to do this, and failed.
The launch of Windows 95 was arguably the most heavily promoted OS release in the history of computing. Everyone was again dancing to the tune of The Rolling Stones “Start Me Up”, actors from “Friends” featured in a half hour promotional sitcom, giant “Start” buttons and Windows flags appeared in prominent places all over the world. If you were alive in ’95 it was hard NOT to know that Microsoft were about to launch their best ever operating system. People lined up to buy it on launch day, not unlike iPhone launches today.
The first Windows with a Start button didn’t feature a web browser, but contained therein was a client for “The Microsoft Network”. In 1995 the www was just starting to gain traction. It was rare to see web addresses advertised alongside anything, on seeing one you knew this was a cutting edge company and it was exciting. Microsoft wanted more than a piece of this action, they wanted to own it.
The Microsoft Network was their version of the world wide web, a dial-up service connected to a wealth of information. Microsoft were perhaps just a little too late with their offering, but hey, this is Microsoft and the industry didn’t write off their chances just yet. Companies produced content both for the MSN and the www concurrently, the future most certainly wasn’t cast in stone.
Fast forward a year, and the www’s traction has become an unstoppable momentum. Bill Gates concedes defeat and declares the MSN is changing focus. Microsoft’s resources will be poured into their www presence and the MSN will become barely more than another ISP in the vast sea. Two more years and the original MSN service is relegated to the history books, but the moniker lives on as the title for a suite of web apps.
If the combination of Microsoft’s mighty marketing engine running in double overdrive, at a time when the www was just starting to find its way into the public’s consciousness and the industry still really not sure which way things could pan out, failed to even make a dent in the popularity of the www, I’d say the chance of success today would be close to zilch. Besides, Microsoft only tackled what at the time was a relatively small part of the Internet. Success in a complete concurrent internet would depend on a previously unimagined killer functionality. Maybe communication with Mars could be just that.