Microsoft is officially putting their MS Reader system to bed. First made available in 2000, before e-ink readers were more than a twinkle in some materials researcher’s eye, the application was intended for the consumption of e-books on LCD screens, using Microsoft’s ClearType font smoothing and a relatively compact, familiar format.The .lit filetype and Reader application have only been receiving the lightest of support, the last desktop version appearing in 2007 and the last mobile update bringing it up to speed with Windows Mobile 6.1. You can’t blame them, really; it was never much more than a hobby (e-books were far from big business then) and they couldn’t have predicted the hardware advances that would make the Kindle and other popular devices the default for reading e-books. Like so many Microsoft projects, it was ahead of its time — but too little, too early.