Windows Live rooted in MSN's past

Of the eight or so services that Microsoft showed off Tuesday 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 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, the Windows Live incarnation
will include a number of new features, including social networking and
Internet telephony.

In the demo on Tuesday, Microsoft showed how the service would let
someone call a contact's phone as easily as sending a text instant
message. That seemed to be a shot across the bow of companies like
Skype and Vonage, which provide voice over Internet Protocol calling.

However, Microsoft has now clarified the pricing of the Internet
calling service, saying PC-to-phone calling will be a paid service,
even during public beta testing. The company also said it will work
with a yet-unnamed partner to provide the VoIP calling, rather than
get in the telecommunications business itself.

Another feature of the new Messenger presented was the ability to
share folders with a buddy. The idea is that dragging a file on top of
a contact would allow you to create a shared folder. That folder would
exist on both members' desktop and stays up-to-date with any changes
to the file. While that capability was built in-house, Microsoft said
Thursday morning that it is buying another service, called
FolderShare, to assist in its Windows Live efforts.

Another service demonstrated, but is not yet available, is Windows
Live Local. In his presentation, MSN vice president Blake Irving
outlined a local search service that included elements of Microsoft's
Virtual Earth mapping. Eventually, the company could add tools that
enable members or their buddies to create annotations, creating a
personalized map of their favorite spots in the city.

Microsoft also showed off a preview of a mobile search tool as part of
a mobile version of Windows Live. With the service, Microsoft is
aiming to have a compact Web search page that can find a nearby
restaurant or gas station. It will be viewable via both Windows Mobile
devices and ordinary cell phones that have a Web browser. The tool is
not yet available, but should be in beta "soon," Microsoft said in a
posting on its Web site.

Channeling the spirit of Hailstorm
The whole point of launching Windows Live even with some rough edges,
Microsoft insisted, is to get a sense of what it is that people want.
The company is also banking on its ability to rapidly update and
improve its services, following the model of MSN, Google and Yahoo.

"A lot of people are characterizing this as a response to Google, and
in some ways, maybe it is," Rosoff said.

But the analyst also noted that the notion of delivering software as a
service is a company approach that predates Microsoft's rivalry with
Google.

"The idea of moving to online services has been kicking around
Microsoft for a long time," he said. Indeed, Microsoft had a
companywide meeting in the late 1990s at which top executives outlined
plans to deliver all manner of software as a service.

"Like many things around the Internet that were predicted to happen
quickly, they're not wrong, they're simply things that take more
time," Gates said in a March interview.

Previous Next Back in 2001, Microsoft developed what it called .Net
My Services, better known by its code name "Hailstorm," that was
intended to offer many services now on the agenda for Windows Live.
For instance, Hailstorm would have created a "myDocuments" service for
sharing files and personalization tools like "myProfile" and
"myDevices."

In all, Hailstorm, which Microsoft shelved in 2002 due to privacy
concerns and weak partner support, would have defined more than a
dozen such services, according to documentation distributed at the
time.

"Since then many, many things have happened," said Ray Ozzie, the
Microsoft Chief Technical Officer who has been put in charge of the
company's overall services push.

Rosoff said that Microsoft was, in many ways, ahead of the game when
it first considered the notion. "The business model wasn't there.
There were still some technology barriers as well."

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