Slashdot Mirror
MS To Launch Internet Versions of Office And Windows
daria42 writes "In a press conference this morning, Bill Gates said Microsoft plans to launch Internet-based complements to its core products, dubbed 'Windows Live' and 'Office Live'. Windows Live is a set of Internet-based personal services, such as e-mail, blogging and instant messaging. It will be primarily supported by advertising and be separate from the operating system itself. Office Live will come in both ad-based and subscription versions that augment MS' Office suite. The programs won't replace the paid software but instead seem aimed at diminishing Google's ad revenue. Windows Live already appears to have 'gone live' in a preview format on the web."
As long as they hurt google they will do almost anything. Besides, they can break compatibility later.
All I can say is "Microsoft, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE 'bet the farm' on this".
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
They could have had these products in the works for quite some time, though it seems a safe bet that this is in response to the recent Google rumours. Who cares, though? Reacting to the needs of the market is what smart businesses do. Microsoft seems to be going through a stage of re-inventing themselves somewhat. Becoming leaner and quickly responding to the market is what they need to do to survive. Good on them.
Microsoft is in the position IBM was years ago and they are just beginning to realize the effect of Google and it seems a bit too late now... ...a lot of Microsoft's current offerings aren't all that appealing or innovative compared to Googles and other companies.
Seems to be working OK in Firefox at the moment, and I don't know about you, but this beats Google IG in my opinion!
Wow, did I just say that
You mean like Google Personalized Homepage was like start.com
Google themselves don't have any plans because they don't have an office suite... but they just invested a ton of money into the open source community... ... and if Microsoft's "live" beta does well... you'll see clones... open source clones, and if it is good enough, Google might do it... (but who knows, "copycatting" doesn't seem to be their style just yet, they've got a lot of creativity left in them)
:)
===
From the POV I think Google is looking from...
It's a lot easier not to look like a bad guy when you are letting other people do your work for you, I think... Google's got a good edge on that... the open source community is large and just needs money to help it along... it'll edge in on Microsoft's turf while being respectful towards Google for helping it originally.
They don't need to branch into these areas because they are basically paying other people to possibly do it for them... putting them in a better position to indirectly influence that part of the market...
It's a good long term strategy... very sneaky
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
How exactly is Google a tyrant?
All that this says is, "All of these years, the reason that I've hated MS is because they were successful. All of that bitching and moaning was because MS made money. I have never had anything objective to say about Microsoft. It's all been lies."
Seriosuly. What did Google do? All that anyone has accused them of is 1) Stealing all of the talent in software (damn, people want to work there, sounds evil) and 2) Raising the prices of software engineers (shit, and now I make more money).
News flash, the only people who complain about Google are the evil corporate masters that you're also supposedly railing against. Really. If their company was all that good, people would want to work their anyway. Amazon.com is not having any problems hiring talented people. Trust me. I've met some of their people.
What you're saying is that nobody can succeed and not be evil. I disbelieve that. I believe that honest people can make an honest living and still, at the end of the day, be honest. Call me old fashioned like that, but believe it or not, one day I'd like to be successful too. Also, I'd appreciate it if you don't call me a tyrant when I am.
Despite what you and almost every other /.er would love to think, MS isn't inherenty bad. They have just made more mistakes than others, but that can change. Did you ever stop to think that they might just want to do something right? That they might want to experiment with new technologies? That this is actually pretty cool? No? Didn't think so.
I am Spartacus
"Microsoft is getting really desperate."
Is that why they made more income in Q2-2005 than they have ever made before?
"They are downright paranoid about us slashdotters, as well they should be."
No, they aren't. Slashdot isn't even 0.1% of their userbase. Firefox, on the other hand, represents 8-10% of web users - a significant enough potion that it's only logical to support them.
Microsoft has made so many mistakes at the past, that they've lost the trust of customers. To regain that trust, they need to make a number of correct decisions in a row. Keep in mind that even more people distrust Microsoft than complain about the quality of their software, so even if they stop making "mistakes," they still need to work to re-gain customer goodwill.
Have you even tried using Live.com? Sure, it's superficially like Google's personalized home page, but it does more than that. First off, Live.com is from the Start.com project, which has been around longer than Google's personal page (as others have already pointed out), and thus Google is copying Microsoft. BWAHAHAHA. Ahem. Second, Live.com is more "slick", for lack of a better word. You can change the number of columns (want 2 columns instead of 3? only 1 long column?), and the interface just feels "smoother" than Google's (not sure if it's the colors, fonts, icons, or what, and I'll agree that this is really personal preference).
Third, and probably most importantly, Live.com is much more customizable than Google's page. Sure, you can add or remove certain canned items or create a new "section" from a search or a feed on Google's page. You can do that on Live.com as well. However, you can also write your own "gadgets" to add on to the page that are not just RSS feeds. I'm sure Google has the knowledge and talent to be able to do something like that, but you can't deny that Live.com does things Google Personal doesn't.
As for the name "Windows Live", the Slashdot article title is just completely stupid. This is not an "Internet Version of Windows", but a companion. The "Live" naming obviously comes from Xbox Live, which is not an "Internet Version of Xbox" but a companion service that allows you to communicate and interact in new and interesting ways with your Xbox ("new" and "interesting" as applied to Xbox, as online gaming, voice chat, and friends lists have all obviously been done elsewhere before Xbox Live). "Windows Live" is obviously aiming at that same idea. Whether they get there or not is still yet to be seen, but at least they're trying. That the beginning looks like stuff we've already seen (though to be fair, we did see it from Microsoft before Google) isn't the point. Go to Windows Live Ideas and look at some of the stuff that's coming. Live Mail is just parity, but Windows Live Safety Center looks pretty cool, as does Windows Live Favorites (okay, so it only imports from IE and not Firefox, but a) it is Beta, and b) it is still Microsoft ...). And it sounds like this is just the beginning. Maybe the whole Windows Live thing will fizzle out with nothing more than a neat portal and a modern web mail client, but it could also turn into something really cool.
Most likely you're thinking about NetDocs, which, though it never shipped as a single product, did actually contribute many pieces to Office (InfoPath in particular), MSN (parts of their billing and support system, Messenger, pieces of MSN Explorer), and other Microsoft products that did ship. Alternatively, you might have seen pieces of Hailstorm, which was later named ".NET My Services" before being killed. Again, much of Hailstorm's knowledge made its way into .NET (Hailstorm was all about Web Services right when the whole .NET thing was starting up, and it's no coincidence that .NET has very robust support for SOAP-based web services).
This is not all that different from what other companies do, with the exception of Microsoft publicizing projects that are eventually killed or integrated into something else. This is not even unusual for Microsoft. For example, where do you think the Office Assistant (Microsoft Agent) stuff came from? Microsoft Bob (especially the dog and cat). While it was patronizing and simplistic, it was also way ahead of its time -- task-based interface, scaleable vector graphics, "interactive" help (say what you will about Clippy and the Office Assistant crap, but many people liked them and you can't really argue with the cuteness factor), etc. This is how companies grow and innovate. What Microsoft learned from Hailstorm surely has a direct effect on Windows Live, just as what they learned from NetDocs affected Office and what they learned from Bob affected Windows and Office. For example, they've learned to use open betas to their advantage, and to incubate fresh ideas with little intervention (Start.com, the origin of Live.com and arguably the cornerstone to the whole project, was developed, shipped, and supported by a team of only two or three developers with no management overhead or other BS, and who were allowed to be open about the process through blogging and customer interaction -- they were even allowed to support Firefox!).
People scoffed at the first couple versions of Internet Explorer, but when Microsoft got fired up they really blew everybody away. Hopefully this time they've learned that follow-through is just as important as shipping, and Windows Live doesn't stagnate the way IE did.
I already said in another post that I want coexistence, not a monopoly on any side.
Unfortunately what you want doesn't matter at all.
What Microsoft wants is to kill all competitors by 'cutting off their oxygen supply'. BTW, every other IT company is seen as a competitor. This is ingrained in the corporate culture, and starts at the very top with Gates/Balmer. That is why no one trusts them, not because they love Linux and hate MS (or whatever), but because they hate the things Microsoft has done and wants to do.