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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."
Also, is it just me, or does firefox do the same thing IE does there? Tried both, and it looks the same, with just the little Firefox users... banner at the top.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
This seems like it could be the beginning of everything moving to a more web-oriented computer experience. Who needs Windows when you can use Office, MSN, etc. FROM FIREFOX (under Linux). Windows could be left for professionals who need a robust platform to run "real" applications for things like video/image editing, CAD design, etc. Everyday users could do the most basic computer tasks in the same way under Linux as under Windows... I guess even if this kills Windows, Microsoft has a stake in it either way now...
Windows Live is a painfully bad rip off of Google's Personal Homepage [google.com].
I hope you're kidding. It seems, more and more, that there are the deluded who believe that Google, along with Apple, are responsible for everything.
This is nothing more than a rehash of portals, such that we saw in the late 90s. Excite was one of the biggest and most configurable portals, and of course many of us configured it, setting up our stocks and our weather, and then never used it again.
Developers are leaving Microsoft and going to Google in hopes to make millions like early Microsoft employees did.
It's a bit late for that at Google now: It's too big of a company for that get-rich-quick type nonsense. However it is true that a lot of ex-Microsofters have left to join small startups, or to create one themselves. This is especially true too now that Microsoft is becoming just like every other traditional "where careers go to die" organization.
Also Microsoft is stuck using their own software as a development platform
Nonsense. Microsoft's development platform is extraordinarily powerful, and it certainly isn't a detriment that they use it.
The problem that Microsoft's internet ventures have, and it's always been this way, is that they do the absolute minimum amount possible to ensure that they aren't eviscerated, but no more. If you remember, the IE team smoked Netscape, and then they were promptly disbanded. Why? Because that team and group represented a threat to the Microsoft cash cows - Office and Windows. These "web versions" of Office and Windows are almost laughable - if anything they'll complement, and most certainly they won't replace until Microsoft is on its deathbed and the revenue has completely dried up.
Sorry to bust your balloon but microsoft is fundamentally dedicated to a world where everyone pays a monthly subscription for microsoft products and there are no competitors and any potential competitors are locked out before they can even get started.
Fooled me once, shame on me- fooled me at least 15 to 20 times- well I guess I should assume you are trying to fool me on any future attempts. (convicted of stealing competitors products, well known tendency of breaking competitors products by tweaking the operating system, well known tendency to slow competitors products by tweaking the operating system or using illegal API's and still certifying product, bundling, giving away products for free until the competition is dead then never innovating, "embracing and extending" java, j++, the halloween memoes, "collaborating" on products with a competitor and then bringing out their own version using knowledge they picked up during the collaboration, etc. etc. etc.).
They are not just another large capitalist company. They are something unique and they want to lock that in forever. They bought or drove out of business every legitimate business that competed with them either legally or illegally (Stak/doublespace comes to mind- there are others).
Trust me, you don't know it but you really do want 4 to 5 solid OS's competing with many different products so that they keep each other honest.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"It's easy. It's live, and it has 'me' at the center of the universe," said Blake Irving, a Microsoft vice president who was on stage to demonstrate Windows Live.
Microsoft has the most obnoxious PR-speak of any corporation on earth. On the other hand, Google or Apple would just tell you what their product does and why you need it, usually in one sentence.