tag:,2008:/1/tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953- 2008-07-07T14:27:53Z Comments for Microsoft Announces Next Generation of Windows Live Movable Type 4.1 tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953 2007-06-27T05:31:19Z 2007-12-16T23:11:44Z Microsoft Announces Next Generation of Windows Live Tonight Microsoft is launching two more products into its suite of Windows Live branded consumer web apps - Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta and Windows Live Folders Beta. According to Microsoft, tonight also marks the beginning of the next stage of the Windows Live rollout. This "next generation" of Windows Live has the goal of... Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com Tonight Microsoft is launching two more products into its suite of Windows Live branded consumer web apps - Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta and Windows Live Folders Beta. According to Microsoft, tonight also marks the beginning of the next stage of the Windows Live rollout. This "next generation" of Windows Live has the goal of being a more cohesive suite of products than in the first phase.

I spoke to Brian Hall, General Manager for Windows Live, this week to find out more about Microsoft's plans for Windows Live and how it is evolving.

]]> The two new products are fairly typical web 2.0 products - TechCrunch has a good write-up. But just quickly, Photo Gallery is a Flickr-like photo sharing app with all the usual 2.0 bells and whistles (tags, sync between camera and PC, etc). Windows Live Folders is an online storage app, with P2P and file sync features. It is also, I discovered, a re-branding of LiveDrive.

In this post we'll explore the notion that the "next generation" of Windows Live has arrived. What does that mean exactly?

Windows Live Progress, Since November 05

The first stage of Windows Live, which began when Bill Gates announced the Windows Live strategy in November 2005, has been marked by a lot of beta web applications and 'software as a service' apps (hybrid desktop/browser apps). Windows Live has not been a smooth rollout - in fact many of the products have been disjointed and confusingly branded. Some products (e.g. the start page live.com) have also been very raw and the strategy at times unclear.

Probably the most overriding impression of Windows Live over the past year or two has been the branding confusion. And in particular widespread confusion about how Windows Live overlaps with MSN. I asked Brian about the branding problems (see below), but first let's look at what Windows Live is aiming to become.

What is Windows Live, circa June 2007?

During my talk with Brian, the following slide was presented:


Source: Microsoft

You can see that the desktop/browser hybrid model is to the fore (the words 'seamless' and 'integrated' are used a lot nowadays).

In terms of the types of products represented under the umbrella Windows Live, they are: Communication, Sharing, Anywhere Access, Safety. The first two (Communication, Sharing) are very much typical web 2.0 consumer apps - email, social networking, photo sharing, etc. These are the same apps that Google, Yahoo and others have. The other two (Anywhere Access, Safety) are more the types of apps we traditionally expect from Microsoft - but under Windows Live they are delivered as 'software as a service', to use their term, rather than traditional shrink-wrap products.

Brian told me that the next generation of Windows Live will be "more cohesive" and much more of a proper suite. As Nick at Techcrunch noted, this includes releasing all the pieces of the Live Suite as a single upgradeable download - instead of separate programs and services as they are now.

Here is the other slide that was presented to me, which shows some of Microsoft's other goals with Windows Live:


Source: Microsoft

The above 3 points all play to Microsoft's strengths - multi platforms, leveraging Windows, and using 'software + services' to provide web 2.0 capabilities like sharing.

Brand Confusion Still Reigns

Returning now to the branding. I asked how far has Microsoft come in clarifying the confusion between the new Windows Live brand and the existing MSN brand. Brian said this will become more clear in the second generation of Windows Live; and that much of the confusion arose in the first place because some MSN services have been transitioned across to Windows Live - e.g. Hotmail was initially an MSN product, but now it is Windows Live Mail (although Hotmail is still being used as part of the brand).

The Hotmail example clearly shows there is still a lot of work to do in the branding. But Brian said that, broadly speaking, MSN = content and news, while Windows Live refers to the 4 categories mentioned above (communication, sharing, anywhere access, safety).

It also doesn't help that the product names continue to chop and change, or there is more than one product doing similar things. e.g. LiveDrive has become Windows Live Folders. And then there is FolderShare, which Microsoft acquired in 2005. So, still a lot of work to do on branding!

Conclusion: Cohesion Some Way Off

Brian emphasized that this is just the beginning of Stage 2 of Windows Live, and their overall aim is to make Windows Live more cohesive - while continuing to bring products out of beta and refine the desktop/browser vision.

My impression is that Windows Live is still a fragmented vision, with a few too many products. But this has been a common ailment amongst the big Internet companies in this era of the Web. Yahoo famously brought out a Peanut Butter manifesto to try and focus its product range. And even Google, which has otherwise been the leader in bigco web apps, has had its problems - with too many products, lack of integrated suites (e.g. in Web Office) and an at-times awful branding (e.g. the original 'Google Apps For Your Domain').

But Microsoft has more of a challenge than Google or Yahoo, because it is traditionally a desktop software company - whereas the other two are 'Web native'. Windows Live is coming along nicely, but there is a long way to go yet before it becomes truly cohesive - and compelling.

]]> tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953-comment:34224 Comment from Jordan on 2007-06-26 Jordan http://www.pandemicsoul.com/blog This is same-old-same-old for Microsoft products. Instead of giving people what they WANT, they give people what they THINK they need.

Maybe I'm just atypical, but I don't sort out files like "documents" and "music" to try and decide what's going where. When I need to move things around, I move them around. Microsoft, on the other hand, wants to skimp on the support, so they're trying to act like 500mb should blow people away, as long as they're just transferring around Word docs. My question is: why would I use this service to transfer a few docs around when I can just zip them up and send them to myself on another computer? Or move them on a USB keychain.

Get a clue Microsoft.

]]> 2007-06-27T06:12:00Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953-comment:34225 Comment from ajaxus on 2007-06-27 ajaxus http://ajaxus.net That Windows Live Photo Gallery, will be a copy of Google's Picasa?

]]> 2007-06-27T07:51:02Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953-comment:34226 Comment from Avi Charkham on 2007-06-27 Avi Charkham http://www.avich.com Why all the web office suite player have to lookout for Live

Innovating is worth nothing if you can’t monetize it. The only way to monetize your innovation in the long run is by being able to cross from the point of early adoption and finding a strong hold among the early majority.

That doesn’t mean that your own product has to go through the whole life cycle. What’s important is the evolution of the market as a whole. In fact in most cases you will see innovative companies clearing the way by winning the heart of the early adopters only to have other players come and leverage their innovation to become the market leaders.

A great example is what Internet Explorer did to Netscape. Netscape was innovative it cleared the path and won the heart of practically every early adopter in the world only to see Microsoft come a reap the fruits by being able to carve it way deep into the early majority and late majority segments and becoming the market leader.

What’s happening to the web office market now is quite similar. All the innovators like, Flickr, zoho, zimbra etc. have carved the path. They have won the hearts of the early adopters who clearly see the benefit of being able to easly create and share your docs and other files anywhere anytime.

It’s not about which suite is better, feature to feature. History and the present are full of better products that lost the battle. The real question now is who is positioned in the best way to cross the chasm and win the early majority.

We do love Flickr we love del.icio.uswe and Zoho, but if we stop automatically criticizing Microsoft (the company we all own our jobs to) we will see that they currently have the best position:


  1. Windows Live is almost a continuous innovation. Users have little to zero learning curve if they want to use the Live suite (this is critical to win the early majority)

  2. Microsoft has the best distribution options
  3. There solution is the only one to really create a seamless experience between web and desktop

  4. The early majority in the case of the web office suite will be immigrates from the desktop office suite and there is no question regarding who rules this market

If I was one of the web office suite players I would be keep an open eye on Live at all times and if I went to sleep I would ask a friend to keep an eye for me.

]]> 2007-06-27T08:12:41Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953-comment:34227 Comment from M Freitas on 2007-06-27 M Freitas http://www.geekzone.co.nz The Techcrunch write is not as exciting... And there's no link to the services at all!

]]> 2007-06-27T08:59:01Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953-comment:34228 Comment from Tris Hussey on 2007-06-27 Tris Hussey http://www.onebyonemedia.com/ Hopefully they will even let us download them soon!

]]> 2007-06-27T19:56:00Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953-comment:34229 Comment from WD-NYC designer on 2007-06-27 WD-NYC designer http://www.webdesignnewyork.ws It is a good news.

]]> 2007-06-28T00:35:24Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3953-comment:34230 Comment from Michael on 2007-06-28 Michael http://http:msftandthefuture.spaces.live.com It's not hard to understand the difference between Windows Live and MSN:

Windows Live = search + services (web search, e-mail, IM)

MSN = content (news, sports, games)

That's really all there is. Microsoft advertises this all the time.

]]> 2007-06-28T18:40:45Z