Home Phone and Internet $60/mo
March 14, 2006 4:00 AM PST
Windows Live offers Microsoft a quicker turnaround
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And, to some degree, that's the point.
Last fall, MSN executive David Cole and his colleagues pitched CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates on the idea that the company could launch online services a whole lot faster than complicated software such as new operating systems. They presented their plan with many of the online services that have been introduced in recent months as part of Windows Live.
"They were amazed," Cole said in a recent internal e-mail to MSN workers. "And they said if we could pull off that many releases, it would be monumental for the company and for our customers."
Not long after that presentation, Gates touted the idea to the world, announcing the "Live" era of software with a launch event in San Francisco.
Recognizing that the company needs to be more nimble, Ballmer has pushed all of the company's units to think about longterm advances, things that can be delivered in the intermediate term, and "twitches" that can be made every few months. In many ways, Windows Live has become the ultimate "twitch."
When Microsoft first talked about Windows Live in November, most of the products on the table were existing MSN services that had been rebranded.
Since then, however, Microsoft has added more than a dozen new products under the ever-growing Windows Live umbrella. In his e-mail, Cole said that Microsoft's goal is to continuously update and launch products in a "rolling thunder" approach, as opposed to Microsoft's usual strategy of formal unified product launches.
Most of the products, he said, will launch to the public in an early beta version. Some, such as Windows Live Mail, are already in public testing with roughly 900,000 customers using the product. Others, such as a user-created-video site, code-named Warhol, have yet to publicly emerge.
"Think about this: Over the next 3-6 months, we'll ship more innovative technology into the marketplace than during our entire 10-year history," Cole said in his e-mail.
Cole, who plans to go on a yearlong leave of absence next month, sent the e-mail March 3, ahead of last week's "Rabble." Rabble is an all-hands meeting for the company's MSN unit, which is largely responsible for the Windows Live effort.
On the business side, Microsoft's new ad-serving engine, AdCenter, is at the heart of the effort. The engine, aimed at helping the company increase its ad sales and rates, draws on user demographic information to help drive more targeted marketing pitches.
The unified Windows Live services should allow Microsoft to get a deeper understanding of the people using its online services.
"Windows Live is our strategic bet to change the game and win," Cole wrote in the memo, which was first noted by Business Week Online.
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minutes, even the greatest MS fan would have to admit that
nothing was actually happening. Can't hardly tell whether or not an
MS product is any good if you can't get to the product.
So far, this one is an absolute loser. At least, now anything in
Windows Live's future would be an improvement.
More than a dozen "new" products? I don't see one yet.
This seems like nothing but a publicity stunt. Re-package everything that everyone else has been doing for a while and call it "innovation".
Certainly, a company with the resources that Microsoft has should be leading computer industry innovation. But there is more to innovation than clever marketing, which is all I've seen from Live so far.
The sad thing is that people will follow along, and because it supposedly eliminates piracy, the government will allow this extortion scheme to continue, regardless of the supposed rights of the end user.
Even if these "Web Services" are free, they shouldn't be used. If MS gives something for free, they are only doing so to stifle competition.
So far, I have not seen anything new or very innovative on live.com. The news I read here, or netscape. They usually have the more interesting headlines. For search, I have google. Basically, there is a better (or at least more popular alternative) to anything live.com has to offer. Sorry Microsoft, you will not convert me today!
The thing with Microsoft is that they cannot help themselves when it comes to bloat. Everything they do ends up big and fat like them. I remember when Messenger was lighter than ICQ, now it is a fat dog. Google is the only company who knows how to create light and fast products and services and keep them that way. Google's products work well with none of the extra crap.
When I order a hamburger I don't want all the extra stuff unless I ask for it.
Microsoft just cannot goooooogle, coz they are toooo fat.
http://ideas.live.com/
Quite a collection of offerings for most purposes. But it looks very staid when compared to the askjeeves
Congrats for a 100 pages of Googles search all for the keywords "EARL BENSER" and all point to CNET news postings by you. The number of searches made are for a total of 205,000 listings most of them repeated. However there are a 100 pages of your acheivement.
I believe someone should intimate Cnnet on this. This is another newsworthy story by itself! Way to go, Macatic...
TY and the rest of the anti Earl lobby (Includes me, of course) would see red.....
- Microsoft Live mail...
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by zman2121
March 17, 2006 12:10 PM PST
- had alot of errors... took it off and will not reinstall... to be nice, it had no gravity...
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