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Will Live Kill?
It's taken me a day and a half to digest Windows Live and Office Live.
The most interesting comment that I came across in my journey through the Windows Live service and the blogging related to both services was from TechCrunch. Michael wrote:
After what I saw today, I despair for many a silicon valley startup.
First, I am not sure why the despair Michael saw was limited to Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is not the home of all things interesting in the technology world and I always cringe when I read words like that.
But on to Windows Live and Office Live. I don't see despair. I see opportunity.
Because Windows Live is lame. I honestly could not find a single thing I'd use it for. Of course, that doesn't mean that others won't find it useful. But I already have a feed reader (actually a bunch of them). I already have a VOIP client and an integrated IM client. I already have several email apps. I already have a damn good social bookmarks manager.
This is not going to be a repeat of the late 80s and early 90s when Microsoft slowly and surely put all the desktop software companies out of business. The web is not a platform that Microsoft controls. We the people control it.
Of all the opinions I read, I am mostly in agreement with Danny Ayers on this one. Through Danny, I got to Joe Wilcox who said:
I expect Live services to be extremely targeted, Office for small businesses and Windows for active online consumers. As such, Live services won't be for everyone. If, say, you're a consumer that actively blogs, incessantly IMs throughout the day and streams or downloads music, Windows Live could be a good fit.
I am the user that Joe thinks will like Windows Live and it ain't for me.
So back to my question, will live kill? I doubt it. It's another example of point solutions vs. end to end solutions. Windows Live is Microsoft's stitching together of a bunch of mostly lame point solutions and rebranding them as a "platform". It doesn't work for me and I doubt it will work for most users nearly as well as the point solutions that have been in the market for several years, are battle tested, are used passionately, and are delivering a lot more value.
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Posted November 3, 2005 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
When IE came out, I am pretty certain that you had Netscape, and you definitely did not want another browser. But the rest of the world saw internet through IE, since the rest of the world had windows.
I believe that finally Microsoft is doing something to take the Operating System forward - designing it for the internet, which has to rely on external services on the internet. And these services will just not be accessed through the browser, instead these services will be accessed by all parts of the OS, which incidentally is a Windows. This means that the services will be provided by some external entity - in this case it is Microsoft(through the service Live). In fact this can be the biggest thing that ever happened to the so called "social computing".
What will be interesting will be if Microsoft creates all these services with API's which let people create applications for windows which will leverage these services.
Posted by: aks | Nov 3, 2005 6:55:07 AM
Next to oil, microsoft is the biggest habit the world needs to kick - free yourselves!
Posted by: jackson | Nov 3, 2005 10:19:47 AM
This is bloody brilliant.
a) I wouldn't dismiss any service with its initial release. It's going to improve and get better.
b) If MSFT is reinventing Windows and Office as online applications I can only see that as a positive for the whole Interenet industry.
c) People will spend more time online which is good for everybody. There is no reason to have this concept of being "offline" - it ought to be obsolete. Houses are being built with broadband connections as standard, positioning Internet access as just another house fixture no different to that of plumbing. If Windown is reinvented as a Web OS, only good things can happen for tech start ups everywhere.
The whole concept is just the same as a large competitor entering a nascent industry. Everyone freaks out, when in fact, everyone benefits in the long term for the size of the value pie grows significantly with the entry of well financed, determined competitors.
I say, everyone should do them selves a favor and support MSFT's efforts, because they are going to spend billions promoting this and educating a demand curve for online services.
Basically, we're all better off for MSFT making this move as opposed to them snubbing the Internet and continuing to flog old-school software.
Posted by: Daniel Nerezov | Nov 3, 2005 11:28:17 AM
Yes, Microsoft is a mighty force. There are almost 20 million blogs on MSN Spaces! Should I say more?
Meeting Steve Ballmer in Munich...
http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2005/10/meeting_steve_b.html
Posted by: Dimitar Vesselinov | Nov 3, 2005 12:00:10 PM
Windows Live today is not a fully-formed product and you're fair to say that it is a collection of spot solutions. I think the point you are missing is that it is really a sea change, at least within MSN, in how we develop software.
Going forward all the distinct verticals in MSN will essentially flip their products inside out as publicly exposed services. Not everything will be exposed but I think you'll see us get completely behind the 'web as a platform' and 'some rights reserved' concepts.
Windows Live is not V1, think of it as V0.1.
Posted by: Ian McAllister | Nov 3, 2005 12:01:11 PM
I used to hate Microsoft until I realized it had no effect on them. Here's how I see it:
This is a FUD release. Microsoft is the king of software platforms, with over 5 million vb developers worldwide (probably much more now). They have over 70,000 ISV partners, great developer marketing, and a ton of money to make things happen faster and easier.
Microsoft beat desktop companies more because of platform than anything else. They beat Netscape because Netscape spread itself too thin and released a load of crap for a while, while MSFT brought its armies of 3rd party developers to the internet through easy to use tools and APIs.
They'll do the same here. Nothing like competition from Google to get the king of platforms riled up. This is going to be good.
More here: http://www.charliecrystle.com
Posted by: charlie crystle | Nov 3, 2005 12:47:57 PM
Fred,
I love your blog. Been reading it pretty religiously for about 6 months now.
A couple months ago you blogged that MSFT has reinvented themselves successfully at least twice and wondered if they had it in them to do it again. I think that Live points out that they can and will. While it's too soon to call Live a success or failure, in my opinion, the strategy itself shows that they do understand the landscape and know where they need to be.
Think about what Live could mean if over the next few years the strategy extends to mobile devises and the Xbox. If and when MSFT finds a way to integrate the PC, the Internet, mobile devices, game consoles, etc. into a single, integrated communications, information, content and community platform, it can be a pretty powerful concept.
No doubt that various point solutions will innovate faster and better at many solutions, but an integrated platform that’s “good enough” at all of the points will be a powerful draw to many consumers.
Posted by: Corey Podolsky | Nov 3, 2005 8:08:40 PM
Fred said, "...Windows Live is lame."
I couldn't agree more...for now. I also would not expect that to be the case for very long.
If the "new user" (and believe it or not, for a lot of these "products" there are a lot of potential new users) and switching costs are low, Katie bar the door.
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