Is Windows Live just another name for MSN?
Of the eight or so services that Microsoft showed off Wednesday at the launch of Windows Live, its new Web-based consumer tools, the vast majority are reincarnations of products that the company had either released or tested under the MSN brand.
"A lot of the Windows Live services are things that had already been in development by MSN," Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff said.
The main Live.com Web page is similar to the Start.com page that has been in testing since earlier this year. Windows Live Mail is a long-planned update to Hotmail designed to make the service more like desktop e-mail software. Other existing products, like Microsoft's MSN Spaces and its OneCare security service, are also joining the Windows Live party.
Windows Live borrows many items from Microsoft's existing MSN
services lineup.
Old
New
Start.com:
Enables people to aggregate RSS feeds from
across the Web. In "preview" mode since earlier this yearLive.com:
Designed to take things a step further.
Allows people to save search queries as well as data from their PC. Some
features are in beta, others are planned for later.
Hotmail:
Venerable Web e-mail service, acquired in
1998, will come under Windows Live umbrella. Will lose the "Hotmail"
name.Windows Live mail:
More like desktop mail
software, with features like spell-checking and phishing detection. Microsoft
has been testing the improved service under the code-name Kahuna.
MSN Messenger:
IM client already has several forms,
such as the MSN-branded service and the Windows Messenger program built into the
operating system.Windows Live Messenger:
Will add social
networking and Net
telephony features. Beta planned for December.
MSN Spaces:
Web
log software introduced in December 2004 as competitor to Blogger and Blogspot.Windows Live Spaces:
MSN Spaces "will
transition to Windows Live Spaces as Microsoft adds new features to the service
next
year."
Windows Live is most certainly not an online version of Microsoft's venerable operating system, as the name might imply. But the company insists the move is more than a name change.
Indeed, some of the technology that Microsoft demonstrated goes beyond not only what MSN has done, but also what Google and Yahoo have covered in their personalization efforts.
The most striking examples were ways of tying Windows Live to the desktop. On stage, Microsoft showed how people could share file folders with instant-messaging buddies and use the Live.com page to view not only Web content, but also things like recently opened documents or a corporate SharePoint portal.
Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li said that some of what Microsoft outlined represented an improvement over the personalization features offered by Yahoo and Google's services. But she also chided Microsoft over the Live.com site's complexity.
"I don't think my mom will be able to use it," Li said, pointing out that those that want to use Windows Live have to start out with a nearly blank page and build from there.
Moreover, adding small applications, known as "gadgets," is no easy task. At the moment, people must go to microsoftgadgets.com, copy a special URL, then go back to Live.com and follow a series of "advanced options."
"Sorry for the inconvenience," Microsoft notes on its gadget site. "We will provide a more seamless experience very soon."
Gadgets are important for Microsoft, because it plans to use them throughout both Windows Vista (the upcoming update to its operating system) and Windows Live. The same types of traffic maps and photo viewers that can be dropped onto a Live.com page will also be able to exist on a permanent sidebar within Vista.
Microsoft also plans to use gadgets as the way to add locally stored information, such as recently opened documents, onto the Live.com Web page.
Eventually, Microsoft hopes to make using gadgets as easy as dragging and dropping the desired application onto either Live.com or the Vista sidebar.
Bulked-up Messenger coming
Some of the biggest new things that
Microsoft demonstrated as part of Windows Live are coming in an update to
Messenger. Although the instant-messaging engine exists today,
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