So Microsoft have now made another foray into online services. I was speaking a friend who works for MSN over a few beers last night and he mentioned to me about a huge announcement that Bill was going to make in Redmond. I was sworn to secrecy though.
Having checked out ideas.live.com it seems that the packaged offering currently will consist of a portal, mail and messenger. Microsoft appear to want to leverage the Windows brand and indeed my friend told me that MSN is now structurally under the Windows vertical within the MS organisational structure. The new mail service is to be hosted on the Hotmail infrastructure. I think Microsoft plan to consolidate the branding and make sure that people realise that Hotmail is actually provided by Microsoft. (Apparently a lot of people still don’t associate MSN with Microsoft). It would make sense to have Outlook LIVE as Microsofts public email offering rather than Hotmail. The Hotmail brand has had it’s day I feel.
The portal that Microsoft are offering through the Windows LIVE service looked awfully familiar to me. So much so that it’s basically start.com rebranded. I’ve been trying start.com for some time now as a online RSS reader. Microsoft at last seem to be making use of the AJAX technology that they invented but Google brought to the masses through the likes of G-mail.
There’s also going to be an Office LIVE service but little is available on this yet.
Microsoft’s plan is to couple their leading brands Windows, Office and XBox with LIVE services that we’ll pay handsomely for. So while playing Project Gotham 3 online you’ll be able to pit stop and type up a Word document while Windows LIVE gives you the latest RSS feeds about Lost season 3.
And I used to think that loading screens for games were an innovation in computing!