ReadWriteWeb(and really no one else) is reporting that Microsoft’s David Treadwell, a VP at Windows Live, is joining the Data Portability Working Group(to be fair Microsoft hasn’t officially announced it, but that doesn’t stop every blog and their brother from picking up the unconfirmed stories usually). Come on Microsoft, pretending to care about Data Portability was so two weeks ago.

Ultimately as I said before, data portability is utterly meaningless, but the news of Microsoft joining the Data Portability Working Group does confirm one thing, Microsoft’s position as an old computer company that is really behind the times. Despite Data Portability being meaningless, Microsoft should have been right on top of the bandwagon with all the others, if they are serious about this Web 2.0 stuff(which they may not be), and not lagging two weeks behind the rest.

Now Microsoft did invest $240 million in Facebook(a 1.6% stake) in October of last year, so maybe they’re just content to invest their way into the future(or the next bubble) and aren’t serious about their Web 2.0 offerings(like Windows Live Spaces and others).

Microsoft, however, has never been one for openness in other fields, just look at the current battle between OOXML and OpenDocument formats(and other open source complaints), and while not a direct analogous situation, does provide a possible reason for Microsoft’s delay(and Microsoft did join the OpenDocument Format Committee while still pushing OOXML so maybe thats it), besides its lagging behind in the web 2.0 sphere.

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