Microsoft to Release Windows Live Unified Installer This Week
The NY Times reports that Microsoft will release a Unified Installer program for Windows Live this week, enabling PC users to download a set of the services - understood to be Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger 8.5 and Windows Live OneCare Family Safety.
John Markoff of the Times says that this is an effort to connect the Windows OS with software services delivered via the Net - and he draws parallels with Microsoft tieing Internet Explorer to Windows in the mid-90s (for which Microsoft was eventually convicted of anti-trust violations). The implication is that Microsoft will have an unfair advantage, because the Windows Live Internet services will be tied in some way to Windows - or at least work better on Windows.
Markoff also notes that the Windows Live installer is a direct competitive strike to Google and Salesforce.com, both of whom offer software services over the Internet.
What is the Unified Installer?
Read/WriteWeb first covered the Unified Installer at the end of June, when we spoke to Brian Hall, General Manager for Windows Live. He told us that the types of products represented under the umbrella Windows Live 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', rather than traditional shrink-wrap products.
According to Brian Hall, Windows Live circa 2007 onwards will be "more cohesive" and much more of a proper suite - addressing the branding problems and seemingly ad-hoc rollout of the first generation of Windows Live from November 2005 (when Bill Gates announced the Windows Live strategy) to 2007. The Unified Installer aims to make available all the pieces of the Live Suite as a single upgradeable download - instead of separate programs and services as they are now.
Share1 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1575
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
The best case scenario would be a serious alternative to Google. But it could also fly in the face of the growing call for serious interoperability between social networks/web services/web 2.0 networks of whatever kind.
John's off base with the antitrust concerns. In that context, there's no parallel between bundling software with the OS that can't be uninstalled and performs better than competitors software by design, and offering software for download that shares nothing but the Microsoft logo. There's no advantage this pack of software has over any other company's pack of software. And "working better on windows" is no argument at all... Microsoft has no obligation to release software that runs on any other operating system... and these Windows Live services are nothing but .NET apps; they don't perform any better than anyone else's software on Windows.