Two Microsoft RIP's today - Public Office 365 Sites and Office Clip Art

Microsoft Will No Longer Offer A Public Site Option in Office 365 As Of Dec/Jan

​RIP: Office 365 Public Sites!

Microsoft is throwing in the towel on the Office 365 public site option. According to a Msft source, it will be removed from the Office 365 Sharepoint Online offering as of an update scheduled for Dec 2014 / Jan 2015. Existing accounts using the public site will not be affected by this dramatic change, but can expect the already lacklustre support to dwindle further.

...

I've seen many asking for confirmation about this, but no official response yet, so take it with a grain of salt (but it sure rings true...). The next RIP story is official...

Office Blogs - Clip Art now powered by Bing Images

Starting today, customers searching for Online Pictures in Office desktop products worldwide will view and download royalty-free images curated through Bing Images.  The Office.com Clip Art and image library has closed shop. Usage of Office’s image library has been declining year-to-year as customers rely more on search engines.

Bing Image Search has higher quality images that are more up-to-date. For example, searching for “cellphone” gives more variety and modern looking phones instead of the old-school bricks from Clip Art. Also, Bing uses a copyright filter based on the Creative Commons licensing system.  These are images you can use, share, or modify for either personal or commercial use (settings can be switched to Show all web results to view more images).

...

As I usually say when these RIP type stories come in, maybe it's better to acknowledge it's dead and kill it than let it linger on in a zombie like afterlife (insert "SilverLight" cough here...)... um yeah... I guess.

If the public Office 365 site info is true (I have one and I've not seen any notice yet) that would be kind of stinky. BUT again, if Microsoft isn't ready to truly invest in it and given how far behind they are falling in this space, maybe it is better to kill it, IF they partner with a real player and help people move their sites. If they don't help people move, that would be very Closing Google Reader of them.