The Buzz: Microsoft Upgrades to Web 2.0
Microsoft on Tuesday announced its highly-anticipated lineup of online services, called Windows Live and Office Live. The news has received much attention from tech pundits and throughout the blogosphere. Read on for a selection of what people are saying about Redmond's latest move and tell us what you think.
"There's been a lot of chatter about how this is a response to Google or how it's Microsoft being dragged into offering these type of services at the expense of losing it's traditional market for Office apps. Well, that analysis is all wrong. Microsoft has been planning this for quite some time, long before it would appear as a response to Google or anyone else. Let's also make one thing clear, these services aren't about replacing Windows or Office nor is this a retreat from the traditional Office applications. If you're looking to replace your Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook with this set of offerings, you're looking in the wrong place."
-- Michael Gartenberg, Jupiter Research
"The click to call (via Teleo, I am guessing) married to the maps was brilliant. I mean wow! We were only discussing this yesterday on how to marry Google Maps, and Google Talk. Microsoft KOs competition. Think of it as MSN Messenger that got smarter, and then found a simpler-easier Friendster, a Plaxo, Intellisync client and well, a bag of chips. My hats off to the team that built Live IM client. It blows that it is not on a Mac."
-- Om Malik, GigaOm
"For right now, most of the newness is the branding, rather than what Microsoft actually is offering. The Live Website gives a sense of what new is coming. But, for today, most of what's new is what's old, but with a new name. Microsoft already offers much of what could be considered Windows Live services through MSN. Many of the forthcoming Office Live services, such as domain registration and hosting, already are available from Microsoft's Small Business Website. Future iterations may have more features and offer tremendously more cross-services integration, but Microsoft already has many of the core assets in place."
-- Joe Wilcox, Microsoft Monitor
"[Microsoft's] announcements today leave some room for real game-changing on Google, which needs to happen, ASAP, before the opportunity goes away. We need Google to get some serious competition, and Microsoft is one of the places that can come from. (Apple and Yahoo are the others.) But they're going to have to do much more than they did today."
-- Dave Winer, Scripting News
"My Day 1 impressions are positive though. I think Microsoft is taking up the challenge of an increasingly Web-based software world, while at the same time sticking to their desktop software knitting. I'm particularly intrigued by the Xbox 360 relationship and I think we'll see a lot more multimedia coming out of Windows Live in the future."
-- Richard MacManus, Read/Write Web
"Microsoft has added plenty of new features that add a lot of value to the product. Among them are email integration, a new instant messaging client, plaxo-like contact management and skype-like features that allow outgoing calls to normal POTS phones. Windows Live is also extensible via 'gadgets'. After what I saw today, I despair for many a Silicon Valley startup. What really got me today was the Gadget extensibility and the full VOIP IM integration."
-- Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
"Yesterday will be remembered not because of what we announced. But because of the direction we're now headed in. Microsoft is no longer an applications company. It is a services company. Don't get caught up in the badly pulled off demos yesterday. There is something a lot deeper happening inside Microsoft than that."
-- Robert Scoble, Scobleizer
"Is it just me? Perhaps I'm just old (in web years) or did the web just get WAY more complicated than it needs to be? Why does Microsoft feel the need to release yet another web portal?
-- Scott Hanselman, Computer Zen